The Miner's Son

In 1984’s Britain, the country was ready to tear itself apart. The Thatcher government was cracking down on everything in sight and turning the screws on the ordinary man to the point where people couldn’t live or breathe anymore. Riots were brewing on the streets, racism was rife and the imminent closures of many of the heavy industries which had been the backbone of Britain for over a hundred years meant that the unions were revolting against the established order. So you might say, what’s changed? But things were worse then – they really were.

In writer/producers Juliette and Kevin Short’s new feature, The Miner’s Son, we are whisked right back to this combative era to follow the story of some of those who lived through it. The titular miner’s son, Clay (Ab Jones), is part of a four-piece band along with his mates, Davey (Chapman), Ravvi (Roy), and Vim (Nettleton). Clay gets it in both earholes from his father (Easter) who has worked down the mines all of his days, and who wants Clay to follow in his footsteps despite the looming closures promised by the government. Clay, however, would rather spend his time being creative on the guitar and understands that there’s no future in coal for him or for anyone else of his generation. This causes friction at home, which to be honest is fairly easy to come by, and this tension is spreading throughout the community, in the pubs and working men’s clubs, as everyone wrestles with the same situation.

Into the fray, posing as a record producer and Arthur Daley styled entrepreneur, comes the exuberant spiv, Derry Knight (Anderson). Knight offers his services to the band, to set them up in a studio and record a demo tape to send to the big labels, for a not-so-modest fee. He also has some alternative sidelines on the go, such as the scam he is running on the local vicar, which includes a load of old cobblers about doing the dirty on a local cult which he has inadvertently found himself a part of. And yes, this is really sold as a salient plot point.

So, with all of the groundwork done, the plot moves on to pushing each of these threads forwards until they reach their natural conclusion. There is no inclination to throw sensationalist events into the story or to jazz up the narrative a little with salacious tabloid juice, with a tame, inconsequential, small age-gap affair being the only extra storyline that the Shorts have chosen to include. Instead, the background issues of the day become the meat and potatoes of the Shorts’ narrative, and we are left to bear witness to the strife of a few miners to help fill out the entire two hours runtime of the film.

What is noticeable about all of this is just how long it takes to get through the story. With the band only performing a couple of gigs throughout, and the miners talking amongst themselves until they form a picket line, it takes a literal age to get there. Then when we do actually arrive at the denouement of these threads it all feels a little bit anticlimactic, with nothing really wrapped up in the end. There’s an awful lot of the film spent on showcasing period cars and playing garage band music of the day, and in truth the whole film could have been told in half the time if these elements were pared down a little.

There’s a few of these elements which feel somewhat anachronistic as well, with the miners sporting some pretty fancy wheels (not to mention Clay’s family home) which would be out of the pay bracket of many a miner of the day. The clothes, too, while not out of place in and of themselves, are worn and styled in such a way that they feel far too modern for the time and place in which they are shown, which takes the viewer out of the scenario to some extent.

What does come through though, is the acting from everyone involved, as well as the solid direction from Juliette Short. It obvious that the Shorts have got exactly what they wanted from their production budget and it’s easy to see that everyone involved with the project is giving their everything to it. David James Easter as Clay’s dad stands out in terms of acting talent, even if his character grates a little, and the locations used, in terms of the local businesses and the working men’s clubs, serve the story well. The Kent countryside also makes a welcome appearance, with DoP Joe Potts capturing the background scenery in beautiful detail.

In the end, The Miner’s Son shows itself to be a very personal film for the Shorts. The story and the characters appear to be based on themselves and real people who were around them during the time period explored in the film. The events were obviously lived through by the writer/producers and that lends The Miner’s Son a degree of authenticity, however, it also limits the scope of the story to only what these people knew. There’s very little drama that breaks through to the audience and the minor machinations that we are party to just take too long to express. The Miner’s Son is a fine film that could have benefited from being half the length that it is.