for his directoral debut , gary oldman chose a highly personal family drama about a violent , alcoholic husband and father , and the various lives he affects .
but while the characters , places and events may have special meaning to the writer-director , the audience is left in the dark .
the center of this tale is the abusive raymond ( ray winstone ) , and the film focuses on him and the people who orbit around him .
he spends his days hanging out with his friends at pubs and girlie bars .
then , he returns home to his pregnant wife , valerie ( kathy burke ) and their five-year-old daughter .
raymond demonstrates his violent tendencies ( and his paranoid delusions ) early on when he accuses valerie’s brother , billy ( charlie creed-miles ) , of stealing .
raymond then proceed to beat ( and bite ) him to a bloody wreck .
but these are the least of billy’s problems .
billy is a heroin addict on the downturn , and it doesn’t seem that he’ll last much longer .
billy and valerie’s mother , janet ( laila morse ) , is raymond’s nemesis .
she disapproves of him ( and he of her ) , but is powerless to do anything about it .
she merely struggles on , hoping her children will survive their respective torments .
if this description seems bleak , i haven’t told the half of it .
this is not a cheery movie , and most of the time it’s downright depressing .
while at times it is interesting to watch to see just what makes raymond tick , and why no one ever simply calls the cops on him , in the end , it’s not quite worth it .
there are too many scenes which randomly dot the picture with little or no purpose .
take for example the extended sequence where one of billy’s scuzzy friends defends a stray puppy .
the film is filled with these ” character moments ” that never really achieve anything .
granted , there are a few genuinely powerful ( and sickening ) moments in the film , but their expression seems to be more of a catharsis for the creator than us .
the actors do a fine job , particularly in the central roles .
the good thing about an actor turned writer is that oldman knows how to write good scenes , and the actors in nil by mouth have some meat they can tear into .
the bad thing about an actor turned director is that there’s no one to restrain oldman from making poor choices .
a good character drama should mean something to those involved in making the film and the audience .
oldman got it about half right .