A WAY OF LIFE (2004)

Cast

Plot

A dark and powerful drama that seeks to find the, sometimes, unrelated motivation for racial attacks. This tense and detailed movie offers a discomforting but riveting portrait of backstreet life in modern day, post-industrial south Wales through the experiences, predominately, of a bunch of teenagers. Leigh-Anne is 17 going on 30, struggling to bring up a sickly baby alone, she's growing increasingly fractious, hateful and finally paranoid as the snipings of her neighbours and mother-in-law, in addition to the intrusions of an overly formal health visitor, make her fear that her baby may be taken into care. She enjoys a fragile support system: brother Gavin, in-care Stephen and Robbie, for whom Leigh-Anne has a soft spot. The film begins with the three men allowing frustration and anger to pervert their possible destinies, mounting a vicious assault on a Turkish man with a rage that is horrific in its brutality, and backtracks to their lives, reasons and reasonings. Winner of a BAFTA at the 2004 awards, A Way Of Life is a strikingly tragic tale.