Love is a dog from Hell.

Kelly + Victor                        
Kieran Evans 2012 UK

The narrative of boy meets girl and chaos ensues is an overused one and one with a rich, often chequered, history. Nowadays, however, Romeo and Juliet are just as likely to be Juliet and Juliet, their warring families replaced by warring countries, their love destroyed not by duty, revenge or pride but by heroin, domestic abuse and encroaching existential ennui. So it is in Kieran Evans’ Kelly + Victor, in which the elfin yet oddly malevolent Kelly sees the manly but surprisingly hippie-ish Victor in a club. Neither would seem to immediately stand out but the second their eyes meet they’re connected. “I’m coming up”, he tells her. Is it a drug reference or a cocky attempt at seduction? As it turns out both, less boy-meets-girl as boy and girl meet, snort Miaow Miaow, have violent sex and find it isn’t enough. And that’s where the chief theme of the film comes in - yearning. Be it yearning for a better life, an elixir for self-esteem issues or simply a more powerful, all-encompassing orgasm. So it seems to be with all the characters; Victor’s friends are slightly hapless drug dealers who keep their stock at their Nan’s because they can make more at it than on a building site whilst Kelly’s best friend is a dominatrix who will do anything ‘so long as they pay’ (and who provides a small amount of comic and satirical relief with her venomous verbal and physical destruction of a trussed up banker). Even the title - set in the credits as Kelly + Victor, not ‘and’ - has echoes of two hearts beating as one and a need to be connected. Alfred Gilbert’s sculpture Mors Janua Vitae is a constant reference and a timely one with the brilliant two leads repeatedly shown bodies entwined, still but not quite content. And it’s in these quieter, delicate moments that the film really finds its voice, the near silent shots of wind turbines and Kelly’s rapidly enclosed bedsit saying more about the human relationship to nature than the near soap opera scenes involving her abusive ex-boyfriend can. At times these scenes are also almost unbearably frightening with Antonia Campbell-Hughes particularly exceptional in the solo final minutes. It’s just a shame that some of the rest seem no better than padding, conceived so that the film can reach a feature running time. I can’t help but feel that you could shave about 20 minutes and a subplot off without losing much. Still, judging by some of his visual flourishes I’d love to see more from Evans in the future and definitely more fine intensity from Campbell-Hughes and Julian Morris. It’s not an easy watch but, at least momentarily, an affecting one. Broken Britain is a scary place.