Kicks

Director Lindy Heymann
With Jamie Doyle, Kerrie Hayes and Nichola Burley
Released 4 June

Two teenage Wag-wannabes kidnap the Liverpool player they both fancy? It sounds like the pitch for a zany comedy caper, so the first surprise afforded by Kicks is that its writer and director, Leigh Campbell and Lindy Heymann respectively, take their premise seriously. The second surprise is that they're right to do so. By examining the causes and consequences of the girls'—and the country's—celebrity obsession they've crafted a credible, tragic drama that bears comparison with Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures.

Kerrie Hayes plays Nicole, an intelligent 15-year-old who nonetheless believes that she's in love with Lee Cassidy (Jamie Doyle), a man she's only ever seen on the football field. Waiting outside Anfield stadium in the hope of glimpsing him one afternoon, she's befriended by glamorous Jasmine (Nichola Burley), who views marrying a footballer as a well-paid career that requires experience and qualifications. First, she explains, you have to get a boob job: her parents are buying hers for her 16th birthday. Next you have to do some professional modelling. "That way they don't think you're a gold-digger." For a while, the new friends are content to gaze up at Cassidy's apartment block, and to talk their way into his favourite nightclub. Then they hear that their idol is about to be transferred to Madrid. Nicole sees the move as a betrayal, while Jasmine decides that they have to attract Cassidy before the señoritas get their hands on him.

The story drips with black humour, but the girls aren't figures of fun: the film prefers to ask why it is they can't see any value in a life that's not splashed all over OK! magazine. But Heymann doesn't treat Kicks as a grim kitchen-sink drama. Instead, it's a stylish, atmospheric mood piece that uses woozy music, sensuous close-ups and sickly colours to hint that Nicole isn't quite in touch with reality. We first see her dressed in pale blue and white, like Alice on her way to Wonderland.
Unfortunately, the film throws away its potential in the anti-climactic final minutes. Campbell's script buzzes with provocative ideas and rising tension until the inevitable scene in which the two girls drive Cassidy to their hideout in an abandoned dockyard. At this point, just when the film should be hurtling towards a climax, it runs out of steam. The paltry, 81-minute running time is a sign that it's a couple of twists short of the cult classic it was tantalisingly close to being.

Nicholas Barber