Days of the Bagnold Summer

“It's not my fault that you're the most boring person in the world!” says Daniel Bagnold (played by Earl Cave, son of Nick Cave). The 16-year-old with the long shaggy hair and the loose mouth loves the heavy metal band Metallica and the cultivated depression in black - and actually also his mother, a divorced librarian (great: Monica Dolan). The fact that he is now forced to spend the entire summer vacation with her in a small English town puts the listless teenager on the barricades twice over. Especially as he was supposed to spend six weeks in the sunny south with his father, who lives in Florida, and his heavily pregnant new girlfriend. However, this movie doesn't fall through. Quite the opposite: based on Joff Winterhart's graphic novel “Days of the Bagnold Summer”, director Simon Bird's debut film is a wonderfully laconic, often uproariously funny and then again very touching coming-of-age comedy that definitely makes you want to go on vacation, listen to music and eat fish and chips. It's about drifting apart and letting go in the midst of a never-ending familiarity. Gorgeous - or: “All nightmare long”, to put it from Daniel's point of view with a Metallica song. “People like Sue and Daniel are everywhere. It's an everyday story told with empathy, humor and a touch of melancholy, accompanied by the delicate score of the British indie pop band “Belle and Sebastian”. The fact that two people, especially mother and son, live under the same roof and are currently traveling on different planets leads to painful, but also screamingly funny encounters and situations that will be familiar to many. [...] “My somewhat different Florida summer”, which you should definitely watch in the original English version, tells of all this and even more of a rapprochement, of opening up to the needs and views of others. It's a coming-of-age story, but one in a double sense: it's not just about the adolescent Daniel, but equally about Sue, who begins to ask herself tentatively whether that's it. “You're not alone,” the film whispers the whole time, and you realize it as you watch, no matter how old you are.” (Kirsten Taylor, on: filmdienst.de)