Always a compelling performer, Aidan Gillen really turns it on for this immediate and affecting British indie pic as the South London headcase who proves an unlikely foil for a husband and father (Tom Fisher) doing a runner from domestic responsibility. Loud, irrepressible and seemingly a couple of slices short of a loaf, Gillen’s creation Aidan Murphy is someone you might cross the street to avoid, yet in the long-awaited new feature from Jamie Thraves, his big-hearted optimism could be just the thing to help his new-best-friend turn things around when the latter finds himself down and out in East Dulwich. His career in neutral since 2000’s edgy twentysomething romance The Low Down introduced a remarkable celluloid talent, writer-director Thraves funded this latest offering from his own pocket, and it combines on-the-hoof freshness with a measured visual style only too rare in micro-budget digital cinema. If a younger, hipper Mike Leigh remade Midnight Cowboy it might look something like this. (Notes by Trevor Johnston).