In which the British director Mike Sarne, of the notorious MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970), attempted a two-decades-after-the-fact comeback. THE PUNK didn’t work, needless to say, either commercially or artistically.
THE PUNK didn’t work commercially or artistically.
The basis for this 1993 film was a 1977 novella by the late Gideon Sams (1962-89), a then fourteen year old closet punk. Intended as a school assignment, Sams’s manuscript is often credited as the first punk novel, and stands as a good portrayal of the movement in its early stages by an individual who knew it quite well. Obviously this film, made much later by a director in his mid-fifties, has a very different pedigree!
It’s about David, a young London-based man living unhappily with his parents. He’s drawn to the punk scene, and also to Rachel, a pretty young American woman he spots playing the female lead in a performance of ROMEO AND JULIET.
The performance of Charlie Creed-Miles (of NIL BY MOUTH and THE FIFTH ELEMENT) in the title role is strong, as is Vanessa Hadaway as his “princess,” even though these apparently star-crossed lovers have very little in the way of chemistry.
THE PUNK Movie Credits
After a fight with his stuffy policeman father David runs away from home and moves into a “squat” (abandoned flat). Along the way he takes a job in a fish market and becomes increasingly immersed in the punk scene. His infatuation with Rachel only deepens, despite the fact that her muscle-head BF is upset with David for beating him at pool. David works up the courage to speak to Rachel at a party, and the two quickly strike up a romance.
Things start going very wrong as David’s mother, grief-stricken over his leaving home, loses her mind and winds up in an insane asylum, and a friend is brutally stabbed. Worst of all, David gets into a fight with Rachel’s now ex-boyfriend and kills the bastard. This seals his doom—or seems to, at least.
Sarne’s script follows the Gideon Sams text reasonably closely, but adds a lot of gratuitous symbolism in the heroine’s performance in ROMEO AND JULIET (motifs from which are repeated throughout) and the title character’s fondness for pool (thus providing a symbolic blueprint for how David handles his life). Stylistic quirks redolent of the late sixties period in which Sarne had his heyday—jump cuts, gratuitous dissolves, etc.—further complicate a story that in its initial textual form worked primarily due to its simplicity. Another negative is the tacked-on happy ending, a betrayal of the book’s dark coda (which hauntingly foreshadowed its author’s own untimely demise).
The film’s portrayal of the early nineties British punk scene, complete with period-appropriate clothing and hairstyles, at least feels authentic. The performance of Charlie Creed-Miles (of NIL BY MOUTH and THE FIFTH ELEMENT) in the title role is strong, as is Vanessa Hadaway as his “princess,” even though these apparently star-crossed lovers have very little in the way of chemistry.
Vital Statistics
THE PUNK (THE PUNK AND THE PRINCESS)
Videodrome Ltd.
Director: Mike Sarne
Producers: Robin Mahoney, Mike Sarne
Screenplay: Mike Sarne
(Based on a novel by Gideon Sams)
Cinematography: Alan M. Trow
Editing: Gwen Jones, Robin Mahoney, Matthew Salkeld
Cast: Charlie Creed-Miles, Vanessa Hadaway, David Shawyer, Jess Conrad, Jackie Skarvellis, Yolanda Mason, Alex Mollo, Peter Miles, R.J. Bell, Martin Harvey, Julian Wooley, David Doyle, Daniel Ilsley, Louie Simpson, Anthony Okungbowa