Habit Review: A young man finds himself drawn into Manchester’s dangerous criminal underworld in Habit, the film which opens this year’s Grimmfest.
Habit review by Kat Hughes.
Habit Review
Habit debuts at this year’s Grimmfest, having been filmed mere meters away from the venue, and suitably has the prestige of opening the Manchester-based film festival. Directed by Simeon Halligan, the film follows one man on his descent into madness as he frantically tries to find his place in the world.
Michael (Elliot James Langridge) is a young man down on his luck. After witnessing the death of his mother as a small boy he has struggled to fit in with the rest of society. Unable to hold down a job, he exists in a world divided by the job centre and the pub. After collecting his latest round of benefits he decides to treat himself to a pint during which he meets Lee (Jessica Barden). Lee takes an instant shine to Michael and follows him home. Michael too takes a liking to Lee and offers her a place to stay; in exchange, Lee gets him a job at her Uncle Ian’s (William Ash) seedy massage parlour. Michael soon finds his world turned upside down as he enters the dark and dangerous world of sex, gangsters and murder.
Based on the novel by Stephen McGeagh, Habit is strange film that paints the city of Manchester as a haven of dark and depraved souls. It certainly lives up to the moniker of the festival it will debut at – grim. Everything about Habit feels a little tainted and unsavoury. The visuals are grainy and dark, the music is loud, jarring and affronting, and our cast look like the types we wouldn’t want to run into down a dark alley. A lot of the run time is spent with dead bodies on-screen, but Habit also seeks to highlight the plight of the the underlings of society and is an insightful peek behind the doors.
Habit Review
There’s something off about the realism within however, whilst there’s a gritty and grimy vibe to the visuals, there’s a disconnect with some of the characters. The massage parlour is of course a front for a backstreet brothel, but it’s lacking what makes a brothel a brothel – sex. We get to meet one of the working girls Alex (played by Emmerdale’s Roxanne Pallett) and she’s the only working girl in film I know of who keeps almost all her clothes on when doing the deed. Now, I’m not saying that we must see a naked body for it to work, but there is something odd about this dirty, greasy aesthetic pointing to this place being pure filth, and a girl who is fully and artfully made up parading around in Agent Provocateur. The location is screaming trashy, but she doesn’t come across as trashy. It’s a misstep that brings you out of the world and has you question what is on screen.
Built up for a time to be one type of story, the film switches tact, racing off in a new direction that, though unexpected, fails to ignite a whole lot of interest. For all its bravado, Habit doesn’t really connect quite as it should. Its potentially a North / South thing, but Habit failed to fully capture me for the full run time. Maybe if the story were to have been transplanted out into London then I would have been more engaged, though tonally and thematically it of course wouldn’t be the same film.
Habit review by Kat Hughes, October 2017.
Habit is currently playing as part of the Grimmfest programme.
