Review: Clubland - 2007 Sundance Film Festival

Confidences are the commerce of love, and the first revelation is the scariest moment of all in a budding relationship. In Clubland, Tim (Khan Chittenden) is poised on the brink of trust with new girlfriend Jill (Emma Booth). She knows he lives with his mother, but that's all she knows about his family. Tim takes a deep breath, laced with the incense Jill has used in her attempt to seduce him. "My parents..." (Tim's a virgin, who needs to trust Jill before he can take the plunge.) "They're entertainers."

Tim's mum is comedienne Jean Dwight, played with boisterous good humor by Brenda Blethyn, in top form as a nightclub performer still dreaming of her big break. She loves Tim and his brain-damaged older brother Mark (Richard Wilson) fiercely and possessively, and can't stand the thought that either of them will ever leave her.

Clubland, written by Keith Thompson and directed by Cherie Nowlan, is a straight up family melodrama, as classic as they come. Superb performances all around (with Blethyn shining brighter than ever) carry this well-crafted movie straight towards a beautifully resonant ending--the kind that elicits simultaneous tears and laughter. It's lovely and refreshing to see a film this old-fashionedly life-affirming amid the gloom and doom that's been characterizing the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Clubland proves that a solid story about real people doesn't have to be ashamed that it makes people feel good--because it's telling the truth about people and life. There's still a place for that in the world, after all.