Why I love Kathy Burke’s performance in Nil by… | Little White Lies

In Praise Of

Why I love Kathy Burke’s per­for­mance in Nil by Mouth

27 Oct 2022

Words by Adam Scovell

Two people, a middle-aged man with short brown hair and a young woman with long dark hair, sitting at a table in what appears to be a kitchen or dining area.
Two people, a middle-aged man with short brown hair and a young woman with long dark hair, sitting at a table in what appears to be a kitchen or dining area.
Her turn as a woman liv­ing under the thumb of an abu­sive hus­band is a mas­ter­class in empa­thy and heartbreak.

Few who watch Gary Oldman’s impres­sive direc­to­r­i­al debut Nil by Mouth are like­ly to for­get it. The tough, relent­less domes­tic dra­ma came as an elec­tric shock in a peri­od when British film, in par­tic­u­lar when telling sto­ries about Lon­don, was more often than not safe, sub­ur­ban and cosy. Nil by Mouth was a refresh­ing­ly vivid award-win­ner on many lev­els, but the true heart of the film was undoubt­ed­ly in its array of aston­ish­ing per­for­mances, in par­tic­u­lar Kathy Burke’s. Like the film as a whole, her fire­house per­for­mance lingers long after the cred­its have rolled.

Oldman’s film fol­lows the mis­for­tunes of a deprived fam­i­ly in work­ing-class South Lon­don. The fam­i­ly is ruled over by the patri­arch Ray (Ray Win­ston), whose drink-fuelled rage boils over at reg­u­lar inter­vals. His part­ner Valerie (Burke) often bears the brunt of his anger and, after one argu­ment caused by Ray’s jeal­ousy over Valerie play­ing snook­er with a man in their local pub, he bru­tal­ly attacks her caus­ing a mis­car­riage of her baby. The dra­ma revolves around the inter­ac­tions of the fam­i­ly, includ­ing Valerie’s moth­er (Laila Morse, Oldman’s real-life sis­ter) and her drug addict broth­er Bil­ly (Char­lie Creed-Miles).

Burke had been on the big screen since the ear­ly 1980s, her debut being the under­rat­ed Mai Zetter­ling prison dra­ma from 1982, Scrub­bers. She had equal­ly been a reg­u­lar on tele­vi­sion for some years by the time of film­ing Nil by Mouth, yet some­thing about the role of Valerie allowed her to explore the full emo­tion­al scope that pre­vi­ous roles hadn’t quite matched.

In a film of stand­out per­for­mances, Burke has some com­pe­ti­tion, but is still the most mem­o­rable screen pres­ence. The devel­op­ment of her role arguably pro­vides the most sub­tle pos­si­bil­i­ties. Her tra­jec­to­ry from qui­et but essen­tial­ly hap­py preg­nant women to some­one who has hope lit­er­al­ly beat­en out of her is pes­simistic to the extreme. Yet, with­in the per­for­mance is a slight glim­mer of a future; of a char­ac­ter that, like so many in real life, con­tin­ues on in spite of things.

The envi­ron­ment of the film is bru­tal­ly mas­cu­line. The women of the film deal with loud and vio­lent men as they var­i­ous­ly encounter each oth­er. Where­as the men in the film tend to flee in fear of vio­lence, either to avoid receiv­ing it or in sheer shock at hav­ing com­mit­ted it, the women are forced to con­front it head-on.

When explain­ing to her moth­er about the hor­rif­ic injuries cov­er­ing her face and body, Burke’s per­for­mance attains a dis­turb­ing believ­abil­i­ty. She lies about the nature of her injuries, spin­ning a sto­ry about a hit-and-run dri­ver on the estate. In a melo­dra­ma, such a scene could have been played with all guns blaz­ing, a faux dra­ma with­in the nar­ra­tive demand­ing to be told with some panache.

But there’s qui­etude to it, a heart­break­ing rhythm of calm pat­ter that sug­gests habit­u­al prac­tice; that this may not be the first time she’s had to invent sto­ries to excuse the odd bruise or cut. Her sense of dejec­tion in the film is ren­dered with skill but is nev­er indul­gent­ly hopeless.

Crowded bar scene with people sitting and standing, engaging in conversation.

In fact, Burke’s strongest moments come in things as sim­ple as a look, a walk or a sin­gle line rather than over­ar­ch­ing mono­logues. After she has been attacked by Ray and she’s safe­ly at her mother’s, she gets up from the couch to hob­ble upstairs before she col­laps­es. Her body reflects the envi­ron­ment of the film’s set­ting, crack­ing under the years of strain.

The Fer­ri­er Estate itself, used for much of the film­ing, was iron­i­cal­ly not many years away from being demol­ished. Again, the sce­nario could have called for some­thing to ease the hor­ror, as soap operas deal­ing with sim­i­lar themes are often forced to, but instead Burke is sim­ply deject­ed and tired rather than milk­ing the dra­mat­ic poten­tial of the sce­nario, bare­ly get­ting up the first few steps before her body qui­et­ly gives way.

Of course, by the film’s con­clu­sion, Valerie is stronger. You do hurt peo­ple,” she says con­fi­dent­ly to Ray’s face, fol­lowed by You ain’t fuckin’ tak­ing the piss out of me any­more.” She is some­how more defi­ant in spite of what she has been through. The final scene even has most of the fam­i­ly sit­ting quite hap­pi­ly in the flat that Ray has since re-built after he smashed it up, just as the rela­tion­ship with Valerie has been seem­ing­ly patched back togeth­er. Valerie’s clos­ing of the flat door also clos­es the film, her sto­ry end­ing when she decides.

In many regards, the momen­tum of the film is down to the spar­ring dra­ma between Burke and Win­ston. Their chem­istry makes the film fizz until it shock­ing­ly breaks down into unbear­able domes­tic hor­ror. While both per­form­ers’ work­ing-class back­grounds arguably brought some authen­tic­i­ty to the dia­logue in par­tic­u­lar, it was a strange hook that crit­ics got hold of at the time, much to the annoy­ance of the leads. Just because we tend to appear in things with our own accents,” Burke told the Guardian in 2002, peo­ple think we’re just being ourselves.

When Nil by Mouth was released, peo­ple thought that’s what we were actu­al­ly like, that they’d put me and Ray in front of the cam­eras and filmed what came out. No act­ing involved. Of course, when bloody Robert De Niro or Al Paci­no does it, everyone’s going, Ain’t they fuck­ing won­der­ful?’, but when it’s one of their own they don’t think it’s any good.” It was exact­ly the sort of con­de­scen­sion that made Nil by Mouth an impor­tant film to make in first place.

This sense of out­sider-ship is backed fur­ther by the fact that Burke was nom­i­nat­ed but didn’t win the BAF­TA for Best Per­for­mance by an Actress in a Lead­ing Role. She lost out to Dame Judi Dench in John Madden’s accom­plished but typ­i­cal­ly quaint peri­od film Mrs. Brown. Win­ston, too, lost out, though the film cleared up nice­ly in oth­er cat­e­gories. For Burke espe­cial­ly, how­ev­er, it does feel a shame, not just because it was obvi­ous­ly the best per­for­mance of that year, but because it may be one of the most accom­plished and impor­tant screen roles of 1990s British cinema.

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