Days of the Bagnold Summer * * *

I was somewhat charmed when I was watching this, but pretty well forgot about it straight after.  

Come sail your chips around me

It's hard to determine who's story this is - the Boy or the Mum.  But I'm guessing there must be a thousand single parents who will relate to it.

Daniel is an angst ridden teenage boy who blames everything that is wrong with his life on the parent that he still lives with.  Meanwhile the absent Dad has gone off to live in America with a girl half his age.  Daniel  was supposed to go to America to be with his Dad for the summer holidays but the trip was cancelled by his father "Now is not a good time" he was told.

It's quite sweeet in some ways and has a lot of pathos. Set over a school holiday, she has to go to work whilst her sulking fifteen year old has to fill in his own days. He has an obsession with heavy metal band Metallica and wouldn't mind being in a band himself.  He has a best friend who is precocious and rather funny. He'd like to manage Daniels career.

Meanwhile Mum commences a hurtful relationship with the wrong man.  She deserves better. In their own way they both evoke a lot of sympathy from us. 

It's adapted from a book by the same name and directed by English comedian/actor Simon Bird. The boy Daniel is played by Nick Cave's son apparently.