Final Critique: The Boy With A Thorn In His Side, Pg. 3

Use of Audio
I really liked the music in this film. It reminded me a lot of the acoustic guitar songs in the Hugh Grant comedy About A Boy (whose music was written by Badly Drawn Boy). It was an especially nice touch to have an opening credits' song that contained the title of the film. As the opening credits are what set the mood for the rest of the film, being able to have this song tie in is a good thing. The use of guitar is also interesting since later on in the film we find out that Billy plays guitar, though he isn't very good at it.

The biggest audio problem I noticed was during the "interview" segments of the film. Often the off-camera "interviewer" was unintelligible, and only by listening to the responses of the character could one tell what the question had been. Fortunately, this is very easy to fix in post, as one does not have to be concerned with getting dialogue to match the lip movements of the speaker. Since these interview segments are important to the film, it is equally important that the dialogue be intelligible.

Likewise, there are also some muddled voice issues with some of the other characters in the film. Occasionally, Felix's high-pitched, fast-talking squeals are difficult to understand. Then, when Billy's parents start in on their yelling -- especially his father -- sometimes the audio will spike, making them very difficult to understand. Though this is equally compounded by the fact that they both have very thick German accents (which, if they aren't real, were very well-done, by the way.)

	And being around Susan gives Billy the motivation he needs... ...to try to improve his life.

Use of Budget
A budget of £5,000 (approximately $8,900 US) isn't that large of a budget, but considering the simple look of this film, it does seem to be a little high. It's always difficult to gauge the use of budget without knowing exactly how the money was spent.

Still, as many of the cast are career actors in their own rights, it's safe to assume that they couldn't have been all that cheap. Plus making a visit to a real acupuncturist just to get one quick shot had to have been a little pricey.

Lasting Appeal
This is a very unique movie. It's based on a rather dull subject--yet one that many people can relate to--and tells it in a humorous and interesting way. Unfortunately, the few technical issues within the film tend to distract from its overall story. If some of the audio problems could be corrected; the "interview" segments refined, spaced out better, and even reshot; and some extraneous scenes cut down a bit; this could really be a very good movie.

Overall Comment
The first feature film is always the hardest. It's beyond nerve-wracking to put up so much money, time, and effort in hopes of getting a halfway decent product in the end. Even though there are a few technical issues in The Boy With a Thorn in His Side that could stand to be fixed or tweaked, it really is quite a remarkable achievement for Mark Jeavons' first feature film. It's an interesting story and this filmmaker clearly has a handle on his medium. And considering that this film was actually screened at Cannes, I'm anxious to see what else Sepia Productions come up with!

	Content                   7.7          Visual Look                   7.9          Use of Audio             7.8          Use of Budget             6.5                     Lasting Appeal                        7.5          Overall Score              7.5          How do we critique films? Click Here To See.

The author of half a dozen screen plays, two novels, and a proficient camera-woman in her own right, Monika DeLeeuw-Taylor is Microfilmmaker's lead writing analyst and one of our top film reviewers. When she's not writing a critique for Microfilmmaker, she's writing screenplays for Viking Productions.

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