Cemetery Junction Review

It’s Ricky Gervais’ third cinematic outing and for me he has thankfully slide out of the lead role and beginning to firmly place himself behind the camera where he works best (In my Opinion). Ricky Gervais and his Office co-creator Stephen Merchant move into more character orientated path, with a trip down memory lane to the 1970s. Although Merchant refrained from any creative input into The Invention of Lying, he has certainly dived straight in on this one. Even still with this winning combination of two of the funniest men to ever grace British television it’s not the stomach tensing laughfest you might have expected, Cemetery Junction is more reflective; Even overcoming it’s clichéd script.

Christian Cooke stars as Freddie, a hardworking twenty something with ambitions from the forgotten town of Cemetery Junction in Reading, 1970s. Freddie doesn't want to spend his best days working in the local factory like his father (played by Gervais - appearing sparingly, a wise choice for this particular film) and his best mate, so goes to work for Mr. Kendrick’s (Ralph Fiennes) insurance company. Soon he becomes infatuated with his free-spirited daughter, who's engaged to Ramsay, (Matthew Goode) top company salesman, In short the script reads like this; Boy stuck in a rut, ambitious but held back. In love with the girl next door who is in love with the guy he can’t stand throw in a laugh or two and ride off into the sunset, got it?.

Cemetery Junction Trailer

America, when it does something it does it bigger and better than anyone (Although I’ll admit they’re not the brightest bunch at times, they still get shit done) and what American cinema does so much better than British cinema is to show their youth as being……happy. Whether it’s because US teens have more money or a car culture that exceeds a new stereo and a £100 spoiler compared to ‘’Pimping their rides’’ that makes The American youth a more dynamic and quite frankly, more interesting group of people to watch, I don’t know, but when British filmmakers make films, it’s much more about the gritty reality than the shiny myth of fame and fortune. From That’ll Be The Day to Quadrophenia to Trainspotting to This Is England, British cinema has always seemed to prefer dwelling on the shit-out-of-luck teens that never stood a chance. As if they can’t help but think ‘fuck it, now or in eighties years I’ll still be dead...

This situation actually benefits the clichéd story of Cemetery Junction, combining the teenaged American dream with the British feel of the 70s. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Cemetery Junction becomes all the more refreshing because of this. Echoing the likes of Saturday Night Fever, Diner and, more recently, Adventureland, Gervais and Merchant’s first feature together emerges as with a bluster and appeal of the traditional American youth picture and applying it to a small-town British setting. Gervais and Merchant have gone for a more conventional American idealised endless summer where the sun always shines in which to race through those important rituals of manhood: job interviews, first loves, and realising you’re too old to watch cartoons anymore (I still do though).

Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant Interview

In this respect, the film struggles to take any kind of surprising turn throughout. The impression of being trapped in a small town (It looks rather nice to me though) a young boy becoming a man who is growing apart from his friends, and a girl who links him and the outside world is a story that’s like water off a duck's back and the movie doesn’t really deviate from it — but somehow comes up trumps at the end of the day.

If Cooke gets the job and the girl, it is Hughes’ Bruce who drives home the dramatic element within this, as he speaks out to his father for not putting up a fight after his mother left, and a confrontation between Bruce and Sgt. Davies (Steve Speirs) in a prison cell crackles with electricity. But on the other hand, Jack Doolan’s Snork fails to escape the comical plus one to the trio with nothing more than a timid relationship with his train station co-worker.

A brilliant, simple piece of emotive writing, it’s a poignant counterpoint to the broad teen antics sits comfortably at the centre of the film as a suited Freddie takes Bruce and Snork to a work dinner in pursuit of free booze and single women as only young men can do. Gervais and Merchant cleverly use there Office days to mimic the grimness of the work social function. Within one scene, we get embarrassing small talk, broad comedy (a cleverly placed Stephen Merchant cameo), a musical interlude, and, best of all, a sublime golden handshake speech from Fiennes’ creepy self-made man. This scene shimmers like a diamond in the rough and makes you wonder how superb a film it could have been if the same care and creativity had been giving from the start.

Gervais has pulled off something that’s more than just watchable using an overused and predictable story; he manages to make it his own. A winning combination of new actors graced with more experienced ones, manages to engage the audience effectively even if the laughs are rare it will still have you leaving the cinema with a smile on your face guaranteed.