After the dark films from the Scots Bill Douglas and Lynne Ramsay, to say nothing of Danny Boyle's Trainspotting and Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen, one despairs of ever seeing a moderately cheerful Scottish childhood on screen.
Only Bill Forsyth has managed to raise a smile on the way to adulthood with That Sinking Feeling and Gregory's Girl. Here is yet another version of youthful despair.
But this impressive debut from writer/director Richard Jobson, set in Edinburgh, also dares to celebrate the healing power of love.
The hero is Kevin McKidd's Frankie, first seen as a boy watching the father he worships fall into alcoholic decay and sexual faithlessness. As a young adult, the only chance of Frankie belonging anywhere is as a predatory gang member — even with two lovers (first Laura Fraser, then Susan Lynch) trying to heal him, it takes a long time before he can accept a decent relationship.
The film, though equipped with a commentary from Frankie that is at times a little self-conscious and sometimes unnecessary when the visual shorthand is so good, bows to Wong Kar-Wai, Jobson's favourite director.
It is romantic without being sentimental, and poetic without being arch. Above all, McKidd's performance holds it together very well.
This isn't just a rough, tough piece of Scots realism. It is a properly imaginative effort, uneven perhaps and lacking the grace of much humour, but still one of the best British films of the year.
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