This Is England (2006)

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Set in mad Maggie’s free market eighties, This Is England follows 12-year-old Shaun Field, a ballsy kid plagued by schoolyard bullies and memories of a father killed in the Falklands War.

Shaun drifts through a lonely urban landscape littered with abandoned houses and belching factories – the tangible fallout of England’s Great Leap Forward. Craving escape, he falls in with a gang of skins led by Woody, an affable father figure in a film fixated on family and neglect.

In Woody, Shaun finds an ally against his depressing surroundings. This is gang culture as social therapy, where getting trashed and trashing stuff is an act of brotherhood. And to tell that tale, Meadows captures a blistering cool in every scene, painted with an emotive mixture of sadness, nostalgia and humour.

But this lighter tone soon turns heavy, when Combo, an old friend of Woody’s recently released from prison, sends the gang spinning into the world of racism, violence and toxic politics.

This is skinhead culture as we think we know it. But even in these darker moments a sense of vulnerability pervades – a transformative ethic that plays out in intense and intimate bursts of handheld action.