Rocks
Anyone familiar with Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank or Celine Sciamma’s Girlhood would likely be able to develop a certain level of expectations walking into a screening of Rocks. They wouldn’t be too far off the mark in their estimation because the film openly nods towards these works, as well as many others. Or at least so it would seem.
Directed by Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane, Suffragette) and co-written by Theresa Ikoko and Claire Wilson, Rocks is a quintessential coming-of-age story about a group of young girls growing up in the impoverished housing estates of London. What is probably one the film’s most alluring aspects is that the filmmakers consciously went out on a talent fishing expedition and spent almost a year among teenage girls in the area, working with them, developing their strengths and – crucially – acclimating them to an obviously alien concept of having a camera present around them, recording their behaviour. Akin to Andrea Arnold, who discovered Katie Jarvis (the star of Fish Tank) at a railway station in East London and Sasha Lane (American Honey) on a road trip across the US, this mission gave Gavron and her cohorts their stars: Bukky Bakray and Kosar Ali, around whom this film is centered.
However, Rocks isn’t a me-too effort aiming to emulate Andrea Arnold’s aspirations or focusing predominantly on conveying a strong political message about societal inequalities or the strife of the impoverished and disenfranchised castes of the British society. In that regard, Gavron’s film is much closer in spirit to the Girlhood or even Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone. The message is clearly there on display, but the purpose of the film seems to be slanted towards celebrating sororal ties between young adolescent women, tenacity of their spirit, and fortitude. In fact, it might be argued that Rocks is a victim of its collaborative and inclusive drive where the director, the writers, producers and casting directors were all working in tandem towards their goal, but in doing so, they could not align their agendas perfectly and ended up flip-flopping between a sombre drama and something more organically uplifting.
Therefore, the film feels as though it was stuck in a tug of war between Sarah Gavron, the director, and Theresa Ikoko, the writer. The former seemed happy enough being a hybrid between John Cassavetes and Jane Goodall – a fly on the wall observing and celebrating these beautiful and diverse young people growing up together and working through their personal dramatic arcs, some more tragic than others. On the other hand, occasionally the story was being pulled towards becoming a serious social commentary about class and poverty, as though it was trying to add to the chorus of such filmmakers as Ken Loach and Andrea Arnold. The film handles such sombre themes as maternal abandonment or homelessness with grace and potent earnestness. However, it may have been a product of being actively managed and tempered on the spot by a directorial voice that did not wish for this film to become an afterschool special.
As a result, Rocks occasionally comes across as thematically bipolar and suffers from tonal swings. For example, it can easily spend five minutes shadowing its subjects as they engage in incredibly natural banter while gently peppering in thought-provoking comments, such as when Kosar Ali’s Sumaya tells her teacher she would like to become a lawyer when she grows up and the teacher – instead of motivating her to improve her grades – casually dismisses her dreams and tells her she needs to have a plan B; this is because coming from a family of immigrants and growing in the destitute estates of London she stands no chance of achieving her goal. And then the mood will darken immeasurably when the camera shifts focus to Bukky Bakray’s character finding out she was abandoned by her mother with a few pounds to her name and a little brother to take care of. Again, this isn’t a flaw because these two tonal extremes – observational cinema vérité and Loach-esque martyrdom – are altogether managed with enough skill and directorial honesty to capture their essence and avoid indulging in misery, but as a narrative construct, it is at the very least slightly jarring to the viewer who might end up overwhelmed by the experience.
Unfortunately, this feeling of being smitten by the film’s tonal amplitudes is unintentionally bolstered by Gavron’s decision to film in extreme hand-held close-up. While this artistic decision has its place and underscores the intimacy the filmmakers were definitely striving to convey, it does add to the overpowering feeling of disorientation that consistently accompanies the experience of watching this film. Therefore, although Rocks is hardly a timeless masterpiece, its potential as a cultural touchstone for young girls who might see themselves in these characters cannot be denied. Gavron and Ikoko definitely succeeded in creating something special here – a Venn overlap between Fish Tank, Kes, Girlhood, Winter’s Bone and Husbands – which is unique and important enough to overshadow its technical shortcomings and occasional instances of jarring tonal mismatch and thrive on the fundamental honesty of its mission and the natural talent of its leads.
