Once Upon a Time in the Midlands 2002

“No one can accuse Shane Meadows of being anything other than a director of small gems. His bittersweet fictions are as addictive as pop songs. As the title suggests, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands puts a playful English spin on the idea of a western. There’s a cheeky twang to the soundtrack, and Brian Tufano’s photography creates deserts out of empty urban sprawls and dead-end streets. Again he probes the anguish of estranged fathers and fractured suburban families that haunted his last two films, TwentyFourSeven and A Room for Romeo Brass. But there’s a fresh, improvised feel about this that makes the story feel sharper than usual. Robert Carlyle plays a Glaswegian hardman who drifts back to reclaim his wife (Shirley Henderson) and 12-year-old daughter. But Henderson has taken up with Rhys Ifans’ geeky car mechanic…” — James Christopher, The Times  

“A marvelously involving family saga… Brit social realism meets the spaghetti Western – and the former wins.” — Derek Elley, Variety