CATCH ME DADDY: A Promising, But Problematic Debut

Without trying to simplify the cinematic output of an entire nation, it could be argued that there are only two types of British independent films. There’s the prestige fare, that depicts the lives of the upper classes and the monarchy (notable recent examples are The King’s Speech and The Theory of Everything), that are almost always boring, a smash-hit at the international box office, and a major awards contender. The other example is the polar opposite – dark, gritty dramas about the working classes that are never boring, but also never in contention for box office or awards success. Just blink and you’ll miss a ton of these gritty dramas being dumped by the truckload into a handful of British cinemas every week.

Miserable, yet very close to brilliant

As a British cinemagoer, I tend to avoid these gritty dramas, as they have just descended into rehashing the same miserable tropes from earlier, better (yet equally depressing) movies, such as Gary Oldman’s directorial debut Nil by Mouth, which is something of a touchstone for the misrerabilist British directors of today. Yet, there have been notable exceptions recently, and coincidentally, all of the miserable gritty dramas of recent years have been filmed in my hometown of Leeds, or nearby cities of Bradford or Halifax.

I flock to these movies to see my local county depicted onscreen and always find it funny how unrealistically gritty it is portrayed. Catch me Daddy is depressing to the point of being laughable, turning the Yorkshire Moors and the town centre of Halifax into some sort of hell on earth that you can’t escape from no matter how hard you try. The novelty of seeing the area portrayed in such a way actually detracts from what is otherwise a thrilling new approach to the tried and tested “gritty drama,” adding enough genre elements to make it a Western akin to John Ford’s outdated and overrated The Searchers (and the fact that Catch me Daddy is set in West Yorkshire means it is geographically a Western).

In a caravan park deep in the Yorkshire Moors, a teenage Pakistani girl (newcomer Sameena Jabeen Ahmed) is on the run with her Scottish boyfriend (Connor McCarron). It slowly, frighteningly, transpires that they are on the run from groups of thugs hired by her father to track her down and murder her for bringing shame on the family. That’s pretty much it as far as plot goes, yet in terms of genre and tone it changes constantly and is a great showcase for the talents of debutant director Daniel Wolfe. Starting with gritty social realism (as is to be expected), he manages to juggle Western genre elements and thrilling chase elements that make even Apocalypto seem restrained and boring by comparison.

First-time directors are allowed to make mistakes

As a first-time director, Wolfe shows a lot of promise as a young British filmmaker to watch out for, even if he does at times suffer in comparison to similarly gritty movies filmed in the local area. As good as Catch Me Daddy is, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Bradford-set The Selfish Giant, or the Leeds-set directorial debut of actor Paddy Considine, Tyrannosaur. In comparison with the former, where director Clio Bernard used unprofessional child actors in the lead roles, with established performers rounding out the cast; it is here an issue, due to Wolfe‘s inability to get realistic performances from his lead actors.

Entire scenes feel jarring because the people on screen appear self-conscious of being placed in front of a camera, and it makes their conversations seem unrealistic by comparison. Scenes in the hairdressers and the milkshake shop (to name the two stand-out examples) don’t add anything to the finished product, apart from establishing Wolfe as a person who isn’t yet talented enough to get believable performances from non-actors.

In comparison with Tyrannosaur, which married the bleakness of the narrative with something approaching emotional warmth, here Wolfe appears to be going as dark as possible just for the sake of it, which at times proves to be laughable. We don’t, for example, need a close-up shot of a man at a urinal purposely urinating on his own hand to further illustrate the animalistic nature of his character.

To a certain extent, the entire “honour killing” narrative at Catch Me Daddy’s centre is problematic. Does the world really need another bad portrayal of a culture who hasn’t really had a positive portrayal in pop-culture recently? A colleague of mine said that he wouldn’t watch the movie for this reason. Luckily, though, it does enough to avoid falling in to the trap that lesser films do and blame the entire “honour killing” narrative on something specific to that culture.

What it does do is portray the Yorkshire area in a way that’s unnecessarily depressing, but is also given enough justification due to the cinematography, which emphasises the harsh beauty of the Yorkshire landscape. This is more successful when it isn’t being filmed in city centers. Seeing Halifax’s premier nightclub Acapulco’s (which features so extensively here it feels like product placement) filmed in a way that makes it look like a violent purgatory, when in actuality it’s just an ordinary nightclub where they serve cheap drinks and play god-awful yet brilliant 80’s music, is laughable to anybody who has ever been there (although I suspect I may be one of the few people who have been there that have actually seen this film).

VERDICT

Despite the numerous faults, Catch Me Daddy is effortlessly gripping throughout, with its significant flaws only coming to light after an anti-climactic ending. It doesn’t add anything particularly new to the genre (and sure as hell won’t see the light of day internationally), but does show that Daniel Wolfe is a new filmmaker to get excited about. It’s far from perfect, but it’s exactly what a debut feature should be – exciting, energetic and full of promise of better things to come.

When it comes to Catch Me Daddy, can gritty dramas be watched as a form of entertainment, or are you most likely to avoid them? What are some of your favourite directorial debuts?

Catch me Daddy was released in the UK on February 27th, with a DVD/ BLU-RAY release imminent. It’s only international release dates are at film festivals, you can check out the whole list here. 

(top image source: StudioCanal)