Brighton Rock

If the Daily Mail think that today’s youth have got problems, they clearly haven’t met Pinkie Brown. A baby-faced sociopath wielding a flick knife and a seriously skewed moral compass, our adolescent antihero is determined to claw his way up the ranks of organised crime. But these plans are threatened when naïve waitress Rose unwittingly becomes the key witness connecting Pinkie and his gang to a reckless revenge killing. As amoral as he is ambitious, he buys her silence with seduction and, beguiled by his charms, the innocent Rose is drawn ever deeper into his murky underworld.

This new adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1938 novel gives a fresh sheen to the classic noir tale of shadowy affairs on the coast. While the novel, and its first film incarnation in 1947, set the action in the 1930s, Joffe has sought to make his mark by bringing it forward a few decades. This is 1964, the year the mods and rockers ‘terrorised’ Britain’s towns and the final year of the death penalty – a driving force in the film, as Pinkie’s Catholic faith leaves him in terror of his awaiting damnation. It’s an update which works well, with 1960s Brighton offering just the right degree of seedy grandeur.

Where the film excels is its truly exquisite cinematography – despite the grim brutality it depicts, it’s beautiful to watch. Nor is it let down by its cast. Sam Riley may not quite live up to Richard Attenborough’s famed Pinkie but Helen Mirren notches up another fine performance as shrewd adversary Ida Arnold. However, it’s Andrea Riseborough’s Rose who emerges as the real star, her every expression embodying the fragility and vulnerability which leaves her so out of depth in Pinkie’s world. Fast-paced yet undeniably atmospheric, this is an impressive take on a British classic.

Ellen Buckerfield