New Year's Day (2000) Reviews

• Emotional and entertaining

  sidmclean2001-11-30

  Anyone who has ever wondered what teenagers would get up to if they were freed from any obligations to their future will find New Year's Day quiet an interesting little morsel. A psychologist's dream study, it's also a rather effective film. MP's son Steven and under-privileged Jake are best friends at school. The desperation of each others parents, the 16-year-olds even have their own language. When they go on a school Christmas skiing trip, it's a great adventure. But it turns quickly to tragedy when on the first day the group of 11 friends is hit by an avalanche, and Jake and Steve are the only survivors. Returning to England, the pair are swamped in the emotion of a grieving town and a mass funeral (a particularly hard-hitting scene sees a long line of coffins on their way to the grave). As the townsfolk try to come to terms with the loss, Jake and Steven feel separated from everyone - that they should have died in the avalanche as well. So near the start of the film, on New Year's Day, we find Jake and Steve on a clifftop, ready to jump to their deaths - then deciding to live another year, to do the things they dreamed of doing. To cheat fate for a year. And so the film sets off apace, with the pair on a plan to rob a bank, burning down buildings, perform surgery, and so on. Director Suri Krishnamma sets the pace well, with the lads' exploits starting off in high spirits but slowly, uncomfortably, taking a darker turn. The two leads Andrew Lee Potts (Jake) and Bobby Barry (Steven) are both excellent, giving their characters a real sense of depth and direction. On the other hand, the ancillary characters are never really developed, and the film falters particularly in the uneasy sections with counsellor Geraldine (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), who doesn't quite hit the right note as a social worker. On the whole though, this is a well filmed piece of work - emotional and dramatic.

• Don't let a lack of budget fool you...

  storri2001-11-06

  ...this is a film with a great deal of raw quality. Two adolescent friends - one with all life's supposed headstarts, the other burdened with a shedload of reality - share a common battle to face up to their personal tragedy. The interactions between the leads are well acted, but strangely in keeping with their social differences, the strongest empathy with each is possible when seen acting without the other. An extremely strong film visually and probably best seen if you've just had a really s***ty day yourself. Welcome to the real world! 9/10 PS Great soundtrack...

• Superb indie film that deserves a general release

  willum-22000-04-05

  I saw this film at a student screening at the Duke Of Yorks in Brighton...i was incredibly impressed. The plot is well thought out if a little cluttered and the screenplay creates two believable teenage characters. Not the stereotypes that often appear in cinema. The makers also avoided the 'gritty realism' angle so often favoured by British independent film makers. The cinematography is beautiful and no time is wasted trying to justify the two characters actions. Audiences are left to make up their own minds about the moral implications and justifications of the 'tasks'. And crucially..a happy ending is avoided without making the audience leave the cinema depressed. Some criticisms can be levelled at New Years Day, the plot is cluttered, and budget limitations mean the first 20 minutes are annoyingly difficult follow..and the fake snow is blatantly fake. The characters Jake and Steven spend the film mourning are not sufficiently created to allow for real sympathy for them. The ending is also weird although it is hard find a better way to conclude and after listening to the directors justifications I am inclined to agree that this is the best way to end. All in all a superb British film that avoids the costume drama and gritty realism cliches in favour of an entertaining plot that makes you think. SOMEONE PUTS THIS FILM ON COMMERCIAL RELEASE...THE PUBLIC NEEDS IT!!!

• Two teenagers do what every teenager wants to do, rob a bank, burn down the school, punch policemen...

  smudo-22000-02-02

  I saw this film at the Sundance film festival, and it was fantastic! Two teenagers who decide to kill themselves on new years day (one year away), decide to spend their last year living out their friends dreams (their friends had recently died). They rob a bank, burn down the school, perform surgery, and do many other things. The film was deeply emotional, highly dramatic, and incredibly entertaining. Certainly worth seeing

• Oh dear!

  azeemak2003-12-06

  There may be a halfway decent film trying to wriggle out of this mess, but as with another British disaster movie (of the unintentional kind), Crush, this film is killed by a ropy screenplay and some horribly two-dimensional characterisation. Michael Kitchen is a fine actor, but his performance here as Stephen's father is just shocking; he could probably drag the scriptwriter down the plughole with him, but either way he is not going to be a movie star if this is the sort of project he gets saddled with. Marianne Jean-Baptiste (another fine actor - when is she going to get another part as good as Secrets & Lies?) is quite unconvincing as a counsellor, in a seriously underwritten part, pretty much the only kind there is in this film apart from the two leads. As to the two main roles, they have a few good moments, but are asked to make us believe the implausible and the indefensible by the script. The "operation" scene is laughable, which perhaps was the idea, although I would have thought we are supposed to be laughing at the horror of it all, not at the ludicrousness of the action. And when it came to the drug scenes, I confess I eventually had to fast forward through them, so embarrassing were they. "Crush", incidentally, was almost called "The Sad Fuckers Club"; I'm sure that it was in the task of sanitising it for our protection that a good idea turned into a terrible film. I wonder if this film had a similar working title...