Love Without Walls
Writer-director Jane Gull’s second feature looks at homelessness in contemporary Britain.
Niall McNamee and Shana Swash
The real saving grace to be found in this film lies less in the good intentions of its writer/director Jane Gull (undoubted though they are) than in the achievement of its two leading players. Love Without Walls is the story of a couple in their late twenties who have been together for some ten years. We meet them in North London where Paul (Niall McNamee) is performing a gig in a bar watched admiringly by Sophie (Shana Swash). He writes his own songs and accompanies himself on the guitar, but success is eluding him and he is seeking to become a taxi driver as financial back-up and constantly studying maps of London to build up the knowledge required.
Gull’s film is very much one of our time portraying life in Britain post-Covid. Arriving at another pub to perform, Paul learns that it has had to close due to economic hardship and the couple have just received a final notice linked to rent that they can no longer afford. Turned out from their own place, they visit Sophie’s sister, Debbie (Amy Molloy), but don't get on with her husband (Ricci Harnett) and decide that their best plan is to make for Southend-on-Sea following in the footsteps of a musician friend, Rob (Theo Ogundipe), who in the event also proves less welcoming than expected. When the couple’s car breaks down and is then removed for non-payment of road tax, they can no longer use the vehicle to sleep in and while seeking work locally they lack any proper accommodation of their own. When questioned, Sophie refuses to admit outright that they are homeless, declaring instead that they are temporarily without walls.
Love Without Walls has understandably been compared with the work of Ken Loach concerned as it is with ordinary people struggling to get by. Gull is a less experienced director than Loach and that shows but, despite being episodic, the story is heartfelt and works for much of the time even though on occasion the writing needs to be filled out more. But what really counts when it comes to the viewer being drawn in to the tale unfolding is the warm appeal that both Shana Swash and Niall McNamee bring to their roles. They not only have great chemistry together but are totally successful in portraying Sophie and Paul as people with whom one can readily identify and, not least for younger viewers, this will be a huge draw. The couple’s rapport is immediately established in the film’s opening shots and, if for many Swash is already an established actress, McNamee who, writes and performs his own songs, proves no less adept in what is, I believe, his first major role.
Unfortunately, there are other aspects of Love Without Walls which prove far less satisfactory. The film starts off naturalistically which is entirely fitting but, in view of that, it is not really appropriate when songs are later imposed from the outside over montage sequences. However, details of that kind are minor when compared with what happens in the last quarter of the film. Earlier it may have already piled up the couple’s problems rather too obviously (on top of everything else Paul's guitar gets taken away in the course of demolition work being carried out) but now to sustain a running time of 112 minutes (surely too long anyway) the film builds into a big drama involving a kidnapping and virtual slave labour. Presented in a way that is lacking in full detail, these scenes take on a tone quite different from what has preceded them and even the visuals start to indulge in stylisation alien to what is required. Furthermore, the use of a church setting at the close complete with a choir singing (Sophie among them despite an earlier assertion that she can't sing) seems to impose a religious note not hinted at in what has gone before.
Given the failure of the film’s later scenes, it could be that my rating for Love Without Walls errs in being over-generous. However, it is a sign of just how engaging Shana Swash and Niall McNamee are - and indeed of the extent to which I can see their appeal carrying everything before it for many of those who choose to see Love Without Walls.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Niall McNamee, Shana Swash, Sheila Reid, Paul Barber, Amy Molloy, Ricci Harnett, Lily Catalifo, Steve Meo, Joan Hodges, Theo Ogundipe, Darren Kent, Clare Perkins, Sally Collett, Adam Deacon.
Dir Jane Gull, Pro Karen Newman, Screenplay Jane Gull, Ph Susanne Salavati, Pro Des Alessandra de Palma, Ed Benjamin Gerstein and Aideen Johnston, Music Niall McNamee, Costumes India Arbuthnot and Roxi Stone.
Hidden Door Productions-Bulldog Film Distribution.
112 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 9 June 2023. Cert. 15.
