Shadow fight Jim is only 16 years old, but at such an early age loneliness and thoughts of suicide, like a nail, stuck in his head. He does not enjoy any popularity among peers, and sometimes suffers from ridicule from local hooliganism, but one day he meets someone who will completely turn his routine inside out.
Young and ambitious Craig Roberts became known to the world after the role of eccentric Oliver Tate from “Submarine” Richard Ayoady, and after roles in various youth comedies and simple dramas, in 2015 he debuted in directing his film “Just Jim”. This tape, presented in the framework of OIFF-2015, as I mentioned above, will tell us about the everyday life of a young introvert, whose life resembles a dull and confused current, but with the arrival of a young and daring Jim to their school (hmm, isn’t this an allusion to James Dean?). This young man, watching the art house of the “golden era” under popcorn and driving around on American Muscle, immediately notices this creepy and despite the opposites, they become friends.
I can confidently divide Craig Roberts’ painting into two simple acts: The Beginning and the End. The beginning generally covers the first half of the film, which is a purely youth comedy with glimpses of existential drama. To this part, I have no complaints, because Craig Roberts manages to successfully combine funny motives and a serious way of forming a new image of the protagonist, which leads us to the inevitable End.
To somehow excite the audience, warm tones smoothly, but unexpectedly replaced by darkness and tension in the narrative. Roberts deftly switches to the genre of “horror”, built on the chaotic canons of the works of David Lynch, Chuck Palahniuk and even the early “b” Alexander Azhi, to teach a typical plot in a completely different format, but it turned out quite controversial; yes, the degree of suspense and intrigue does not subside until the very last minutes, but the genre experiment of Roberts I would call merged and unsuccessful due to the fact that the potential is sufficiently sluggish.
Surely because of his possible egocentricity, Craig Roberts decided to appear in the lead roles, and our couple will be quite ambitious Emil Hirsch, who played his hero on “hurrah”. These characters are each other’s antonyms, and personally I was reminded of the “sweet” couple JT and Ricky from the movie “Dead Man”; despite their difference, the characters of Craig and Emil deftly spin in a constant rhythmic dance, merging into a single quintessence of feelings, thoughts and vices, which we will observe throughout the entire timekeeping.
As for the general technical aspects, I note that Michael Price, despite his rich portfolio, picked up a rather calm, but completely tasteless sound, which, in my opinion, serves only as a “silence shaker” in the picture.
“Just Jim” by young debutant Craig Roberts is a fairly fresh and specific look at the beloved topic of adolescent development. Unfortunately, Craig did not take into account that it will not be possible to jump over his head for the first time, and we will be told about this by a kind of plot understatement and a raw aftertaste from the last minutes of the film, but in general, for a beginner, the film came out quite cheerful.
6 out of 10