Research on film: Speak like a child (1998)

Speak Like A Child (1998)

Directed by:

John Akomfrah

Cast:

Cal Macaninch .... Billy, Age 30

Daniel Newman .... Billy, Age 14

Richard Mylan .... Sammy, Age 30

Fraser Ayres .... Sammy, Age 14

Rachel Fielding .... Ruby, Age 30

Alison Mac .... Ruby, Age 14

Carla Henry .... Dorothy

Gavin Green .... Bernie

Synopsis:

In North London, Sammy (Richard Mylan) stands and waits for the arrival of childhood friends Billy and Ruby (Cal Macininch, Rachel Fielding), who are married. It is revealed that the three had become close friends at a home for children twenty years ago, before Sammy was taken by social workers to join an isolated children's home on the dramatic Northumbrian coast. As Sammy gets into Billy and Ruby's car it is immediately clear that, despite the fact that Ruby is recently pregnant, there is violent tension between them and that there is a psychological significance to the mysterious journey that Billy is taking them on. Flashbacks develops their relationship and their sharing of everything. It is revealed that the single man wants the couple to move in with him. The woman, who is pregnant, reveals she is ready to dump her husband and begin a relationship with the other man. But all are bothered by some distant past secret.

As the journey progresses, we travel back to the past of their childhood when Sammy, shy and vulnerable and unable to read, joins the home. Billy, confident and charismatic, befriends and guides him through the trials of life in the home and protects him from the violent attentions of the resident bully, Bernie. As Sammy grows in confidence, Billy encourages a romantic attachment with his old girlfriend, the flame-haired Ruby. Using his emotional power over his friends, Billy establishes a ménage a trois that sets them apart from other children in the home. This power is threatened when, in a dramatic incident, Billy tries to defend Sammy from Bernie and gets savagely beaten. The resulting act of revenge is one which will inextricably bind the three friends through the intervening years until the pressure of the past and present combine to force an inevitable resolution.


The feature film debut of documentary director John Akomfrah,explores the intense friendship that evolves between three troubled teenagers growing up in an isolated children's home on the Northumbrian coast. The desolate beauty of the coastline is captured in stunning panoramas, while strong performances by the young cast help to create a lyrical and poignant drama.Billy's words, "Sharing each other, sharing the same thing, sharing each other," sum up this tale of an extraordinary friendship. Apparently inspired by writer Danny Padmore's personal experience, Speak Like A Child paints a vivid picture of an institutionalised childhood.

The opening sequence, in which Sammy spies on Ruby and Billy in different situations, draws the viewer into a fragile world of childhood, where danger and desire are mutually dependent and secrecy both protects and hurts.
Music is integral to the narrative, distinguishing past from present and, in the drunken-sounding, self-propelled 'motorcar' song hinting at the nature of their triangular relationship, and Billy's subsequent death.

Themes:
Relationship
Friendship
Bullying
Violence

No film clips found because the film is not well known