By Ben Bussey
It’s always admirable to see a debut feature from not only a first-time director but also a largely inexperienced cast and crew, particularly when the film in question is making a very concerted effort to break from the norm and present something unique and challenging. That having been said, when aiming to present a fresh, individual and uncompromising vision, it rather helps if the film and its makers actually have something interesting to say, and a compelling story to tell. Sadly, this is not the case in Tear Me Apart, the first film from director Alex Lightman and the bulk of his young cast. It’s a handsomely made film for certain, making good use of an enormously picturesque Cornish backdrop, and its minimalist take on post-apocalyptic drama is intriguing at first; but as it trudges along, initial intrigue soon gives way to tedium.
Alfie Stewart and Frazer Alexander play two adolescent brothers who live together in a cave on the seafront, in the wake of some sort of cataclysm which seemingly wiped out most of the world’s population – most significantly women, of whom it’s thought there are none left at all. The brothers live in wait for their father, who left them some time ago in search of civilization. Living entirely without electricity or technology (matches are the best it gets, and the brothers treat those like gold dust), their day to day life centres almost entirely on finding food; and, under the belief that all fruits and vegetables are poisonous, they spend their time casting nets into the surf for fish, and laying traps for animals in the nearby fields. None of this yields great results, and as such the younger brother (Stewart) tends to kill and eat any men that cross their path.
Things change when the brothers encounter something they never anticipated: a young woman (Jennie Eggleton). Initially bemused, the brothers proceed to take her prisoner and drag her back to their cave. Of course, having a third party in their midst – one who just might be the last female left in existence – has an inevitable impact on the group dynamic. But they don’t have too long to worry about the Yoko factor, as it soon comes to light that a group of elder ravagers is after them all.
On a technical and aesthetic level, there is plenty to admire about Tear Me Apart. While it’s readily apparent this was not a big budget production, it looks and sounds great. The coast of Cornwall was an excellent choice of location; it’s a beautiful, majestic landscape which immediately enhances the primal, back-to-nature theme at the heart of the story. While the film might easily be classed in the same bracket as Mad Max and its imitators, it’s laudable that Lightman and co chose not to fall back on standard post-apocalyptic cliches, keeping things very grounded and bare bones. There’s a similarly minimalist approach taken with the music, with an atmospheric acapella song used repeatedly throughout; equal parts soothing and sinister, which very much fits the mood Tear Me Apart is aiming for.
The problem is that, beyond this, there’s just very little going on in Tear Me Apart to maintain interest. In terms of plot and character there’s really nothing here we haven’t seen before, and there’s something depressingly backward in its sexual politics; in Eggleton’s Molly, we yet again have an idealised female embodying everything that is good, sent to redeem and enlighten the lost, fearful, violent males, who naturally wind up fighting for ownership of her. Where she has a name, they have none; where she is giving and warm, they are cold and selfish; where they live only on meat, she lives on fruit (it’s no accident that the first thing she does on meeting Stewart in a Garden of Eden-esque setting is to offer him an apple). Director Lightman and writer Tom Kerevan might have been aiming for a feminist-friendly subtext, with the implication that the loss of women reduces all men to savagery, but this is ultimately pushing tired, outmoded notions of the ‘fairer sex’ which we should be past by now. None of this is to suggest there’s anything inherently wrong with Eggleton’s performance; she does the best with what she’s given, but sadly that isn’t a lot.
As for the two young male leads; whilst Stewart and Alexander are clearly very capable actors, neither of them ever quite convince as hardened post-apocalyptic survivors (for one thing, there’s the question of how these modern primitives manage to stay perfectly clean-shaven with short, well-styled hair). While we often see the young men prowling and hunting in a somewhat animalistic fashion, there’s something very unnatural and stagey about these sequences, and no real sense of brutality or tension comes across. The cannibalism element has been emphasised in the PR – and pushed further in the production company’s choice of name, Cannibal Films – but it actually plays a very small role in the film itself, which is very low on bloodshed. Ultimately, when we have characters it’s hard to care about and no real sense of peril, there’s isn’t much left to be invested in as a viewer.
Lightman and the team at Cannibal Films are reportedly developing their follow-up feature right now, and I will be genuinely interested to see how that comes out; again, they clearly know what they’re doing on a technical level, which counts for a lot in the low-budget indie field. I just hope they come up with a more substantial story next time around, and breathe a bit more life into it than they managed here.
Tear Me Apart is released online on 17th June, from www.tearmeapartmovie.com.