The Caravan is a British indie family drama packed full of sentiment that is sometimes misplaced and often forced and not, how you might imagine, a lighthearted family comedy featuring a holiday park (although there is a holiday park). Perhaps it should have been, perhaps writers Chris Green and Simon Powell (also directing his third feature here) should have taken a more ‘American’ approach with this story. Throw in a bit of Dan In Real Life or Little Miss Sunshine to explore this dysfunctional family relationship rather than taking the rather schmaltzy approach. And that’s not to say there’s anything wrong with schmaltzy. I love me some sentiment, but this is too forced and unfortunately not quite executed to its full potential by the films co-leads Mark Sheals and Darren Connolly, playing father and son Keith and James Langley, respectively.
The two Manchester grippers are forced together to spend a week renovating their family caravan upon the request of Keith’s wife and James’ mother. The two haven’t quite been father and son for some time and in her passing the wife/mother devised a plan to try and get to two to reconcile. It’s strange to see two big men (one portraying a Rugby coach and the other a solider) taking on the emotion, but an intriguing angle none the less. Still, this felt like it had all the offerings for something a little lighter, and perhaps that was the easy route and therefore intentionally avoided, and while there are humorous moments (or at least clear attempts) because of the direction the film takes from the get-go, it just feels out of place and unconvincing. Shirley Henderson shows up around the middle of the film and offers an added element with the story of a mysteriously burdened woman and it does help pick the film up, as would any film with Henderson’s presence.
British film needs to embrace indie film a little more and budgeting is a big part of that. So it’s nice to see a film like The Caravan being given a chance. It is something different, it does get out of the comfort zone for how you think this film may pan out and that’s to be celebrated. The relationship between Shirley Henderson’s shy and reserved Elaine and Mark Seal’s Mancunian big man Keith is a fantastically contrasting match. What’s more is it’s nice to see local talent (I’m a northern boy myself) being given a shot on film, because too often the working-class actor is overlooked for the more ‘classically’ trained. To see a little part of the North (while location wise is missing) featured on the big screen is always welcomed.
Aesthetically the film looks great and credit clearly goes to Simon Powell for that, but the dialogue at times feels wooden and something belonging to an episode of Coronation Street rather than a feature film and the music while ambitious can be a bit grating and too much for some moments in the film. Overall though The Caravan shines a nice light on independent British cinema and highlights again why funding really needs to be handed out to give more British filmmakers a chance to shine.
The Caravan is available now on Itunes, Amazon and Blinkbox.
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