ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

cageybird I first watched this when it came out in 1997. It was pretty powerful to me, and I just couldn't watch it again for a long time. I was young and dumb then, but all I could remember was my boyfriend at the time fell asleep and I bawled my eyes out.So this week I finally geared up to watch it again...And it smashed my heart into pieces again, with no less impact... This film is so hard to write about. Tin-Pot dictators who are kings of their own castles, and the women who support them.... What broke my heart was our 'heroine' played by Kathy Burke, the victim of her nasty, violent husband... He beats the sh*t out of her, she throws him out, he begs to come back, and you are just f**king cheering her on.... The next scene, he's back, all's good, no big reconciliation scene... This could have been the movie of my childhood... Drama, police, strength, followed by some mystery process and everything back to 'normal'. I felt like Oldman was watching my childhood then put it on screen.... This film has stayed with me for 20 years and I have never seen a truer portrayal of casual domestic violence. Kathy Burke was f**king out of this world as a strong, yet ultimately trapped woman, and Ray Winstone was a tour-de-force, literally, as a man who doesn't understand his own motives, who never will..... For me this is THE definitive British domestic violence film

thebogofeternalstench Its very rare that I rate something 10 out of 10 but Nil By Mouth deserves it.What really really nags me is that this excellent film is poorly rated by Americans and Canadians etc that just don't get the lingo etc. Or the fact that Nil By Mouth is 'too grim' to applaud.I mean, had this been some less violent American movie by some A list actors then they would of gotten Oscar nominations and all sorts.The fact is this film is too real for most people. It has a lot of heart and reality to it. Its so gritty and raw and exploding with substance I cant believe how much Nil By Mouth is overlooked. AS far as I'm concerned this is the British Once Were Warriors, another great film but from New Zealand.I praise Gary Oldman for making such an honest, from the heart film. It is so rare nowadays to see something like Nil By Mouth.Kathy Burke is fantastic as the abused wife, and Ray Winstone equally as fantastic as the abuser and raging alcoholic. The supporting cast is fantastic as well.I really wish films like this existed today, sadly no one has the balls, vision or creativeness.Top film. If you think this film has no artistic merit then you really haven't got a clue. Its unique.

epat I'm a sucker for Cockney films. I've got a few Cockney pals & I'm fascinated by their accent, slang & wit, but this is not Lock, Stock & Two Smoking, mate. Not even close.I first watched Nil by Mouth several years ago under the erroneous impression Gary Oldman acted in it; I disliked it & soon put it from my mind. Recently though, a friend talked me into seeing it again & I have to concur, it really is an intelligently conceived & superbly crafted film. It's totally & utterly real in every detail, from the mists of rage-blown spit during Ray's outbursts to the ambient pub noise & people talking over one another that semi-obscures the dialog. (English subtitles would have come in handy here.) But the very realism that makes this film so brilliant is what makes it so excruciating to watch.First-rate performances are turned in by Charlie Creed-Miles, whose Billie is so spot-on you never really notice the acting; by the ever-beguiling Steve Sweeney as Billie's geezer mate; & by Laila Morse as the quietly suffering mother of a junkie son & an abused daughter. But all of these are overshadowed by the extraordinary performances of Ray Winstone & Kathy Burke.Nil by Mouth is about family — & dysfunctional doesn't begin to describe it. Young Billie, who at first seems be shaping as the main character, serves more as a foil for the rest of the family than anything else. He leads the life of a junkie, scamming & scheming, begging & stealing, jones-ing & winding up in one jam after another. Predictable. Ray, on the other hand — in a tour-de-force portrayal by Ray Winstone — is so full of brooding violence barely held in check as to be totally unpredictable. We never learn what it is he does for a living, but we can make an educated guess that it's nothing on the up-&-up. The only good times Ray knows center on pubs & lap-dancers & even then he seems on the verge of rage half the time.Kathy Burke, in her quietly understated role as Ray's wife Val, is almost equally brilliant, drawing on hidden strength you never suspected she had after a horrific beating at Ray's hands. Perhaps the most moving scene in the film is when she starts dancing a bit at her grandmother's flat where she's recuperating. She dances clumsily, haltingly — clearly still in a lot of pain — but she embraces this life-affirming activity nonetheless, even assuaging the fears & anguish her gram feels for her by drawing her into the dance.Ray's chillingly restrained drug- & alcohol-induced psychopathy as he wakes Val from a sound sleep to interrogate her & his total savagery when he assaults her are outright terrifying. But his utter breakdown afterwards, the staggering lunacy of it, the verbal rehearsal to an empty flat of all his apologies & excuses, the glossing-over, the utter lack of remorse, his besotted attempts to woo her back over a phone he's too drunk to even hold on to... these add up to one of the best acting performances I've ever witnessed. His later revelations about his childhood as he sits drinking with his mate Mark leave you with a tinge of... not sympathy — you can't muster sympathy for an animal like that — but perhaps an inkling of insight into the tortured soul that makes him who he is.And this, I think, is the focus of the film, the unbroken chain of binge-drinking & father-to-son brutalization that breeds ever more of the same for all involved. In its realism, the only film I can compare it to is Martin Scorcese's Mean Streets, but Mean Streets never cut this deep.The ending is left open to interpretation. This isn't Hollywood; there never was a plot, nothing's neatly resolved, no comforting closure here. Is this a temporary truce or is it worse, a genuine rapprochement? It's impossible for the viewer to forgive Ray his brutality, and yet you're left with the sinking feeling that Val will & the cycle will go on.

kj-b A brutally honest, gritty, painful reflection on working class life in england. It begins as you would expect any film about working class citizens to begin... in the local, run down pub. But the 2 hour film takes you through honest and heart wrenching material which makes the text, as a whole, incredibly painful to watch. The characters are broken, yet we form a well rounded understanding of them while we watch the turbulent events of their lives unfold. The sympathy and distaste we feel for each character stems from a completely honest representation of them (and their situation) fed to us so truthfully by Gary Oldman. The story, whilst controversial in it's nature, makes for an interesting and turbulent ride through the back streets of London proving us with previews of drugs, violence a domestic abuse. A must see for any serious film lover. Not to be taken lightly.