Jon S Baird 2013 Scotland
Starring: James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Imogen Poots, John Sessions, Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan, Joanne Froggat, Shirley Henderson, Martin Compston, Kate Dickie
Cinematic renderings of novels are always a challenge for directors, particularly when said director is inexperienced and the novel in question is the brainchild of the abrasive Scottish author and playwright Irvine Welsh. Of course, Welsh's work has been adapted before with Danny Boyle's 1996 Trainspotting the benchmark and Paul McGuigan's 1998's The Acid House and Rob Heydon's 2011 Ecstasy far less successful. Filth, Welsh's coal black satire on masculinity, ambition and the police, may be the most difficult of all of his work to adapt, not least because the main character, the immoral, cruel, hollow-eyed, misogynistic, rhetoric spewing, Machiavellian policeman Bruce Robertson, is endlessly complex and, for nearly all of the narrative, apparently utterly bereft of any redeeming features. His chameleonic nature also means that all of the adjectives I've just used may be completely incorrect, part of an elaborate act designed to control everybody (and every situation). At times it seems that even his adjustability may be an act. His real self is, until the later chapters, a mystery. At one point he berates his despised female colleague for being a suspected lesbian, his homophobia more potent than ever, but at another he rages in support of another colleague when insulting graffiti about his sexuality (that Bruce has actually written) appears. Later he aggressively masturbates to girl-on-girl porn before virtually attacking the TV screen when a man joins in the act. In truth all we're sure of is that there's something below the surface, a fragility of sorts consistently threatening to burst out against his will and signposting his eventual descent into a self-created hell. A lot of the credit here has to go to James McAvoy, his performance carrying a previously unseen brittle ferocity and rattling with malevolent charm, his permanent sneer barely covering gnashing teeth as he refuses a cowering suspect his inhaler until he relents to Bruce's will, but director Jon S Baird (who also wrote the screenplay) has done well too largely keeping to Welsh's uncompromising source and echoing his gradual reveals so the tantalising puzzle pieces build to a frightening crescendo. It's just a shame he couldn't extend it to the small instances of comedy he throws in seemingly without realising that they really don't match the register of the rest of the plot. To speak of delicate sensitivity when referring to Irvine Welsh may ring a little strange but he does have a real conscientiousness in that he's always aware just how far he can go and just when to stop. Baird obviously understands the finer points of a lot of Welsh's prose but he's missed a trick with this one which is forgivable when these momentary lapses appear early, partially because of their brevity but also because they have no effect on the events they're added to, but when he repeats the idea, and breaks the forth wall, in the (changed) final scenes it really takes the bloom off what should be a deeply unsettling moment of pessimistic release. It's incredibly sad because everyone else is on cracking form, especially those in charge of the soundtrack (full of intelligent, appropriately chosen soul tracks such as Clarence Carter's Back Door Santa) and the outstanding cast, encompassing, amongst others, Jim Broadbent's delirious Dr Rossi, Eddie Marsan's gentle, born-victim Clifford Blades, Jamie Bell's nervy, boyish (and surprising) junior detective Ray Lennox and Shirley Henderson's genuinely odd Bunty (a brilliant study in repressed sexuality). It's no Trainspotting in the adaptation stakes (very few films could be) but at its best it's a highly admirable second.