Urban Hymn

Michael Caton-Jones returns to the big-screen with Urban Hymn, a redemp­tive com­ing-of-age sto­ry set in South-West Lon­don. Secret songstress Jamie (Leti­tia Wright) is a tick­ing time bomb, and her days in the care sys­tem strug­gling to man­age her unruly behav­iour are fast­ly dwin­dling. Enter Kate (Shirley Hen­der­son): a naïve and uncon­ven­tion­al soci­ol­o­gy lec­tur­er turned social work­er, hell-bent on reform­ing the sys­tem in the wake of per­son­al tragedy. Dis­cov­er­ing Jamie’s tal­ent, and util­is­ing their shared affin­i­ty for Etta James, she encour­ages her to use singing as a release from her trou­bled life. Loy­al­ties rapid­ly become torn, as Jamie is tossed between Kate and her pos­ses­sive and volatile best friend, Leanne (Isabel­la Laugh­land) – a lost cause from the start.

The gen­uine if destruc­tive bond between the two young leads is utter­ly con­vinc­ing, but the good-girl/bad-girl dichoto­my drawn between them just isn’t. From the moment she joins hands with Kate in a capel­la, Jamie is seem­ing­ly reborn via immac­u­late con­cep­tion – swap­ping track­ies for twin-sets, and aban­don­ing her for­mer loy­al­ties and vices at break­neck speed. Mean­while, snarly Leanne spi­rals fur­ther down the rab­bit-hole of dis­en­fran­chise­ment, drown­ing her sor­rows in drug-fuelled acts of vio­lence against her­self and oth­ers. She is nev­er afford­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to save her­self, cast aside while her clos­est ally soars towards schol­ar­ships and sen­si­ble boys, and there­in lies the crux of the film’s down­fall. At one point, Jamie is pub­licly chas­tised for misconduct,“despite being a val­ued mem­ber of a com­mu­ni­ty choir”, imply­ing that pious­ness should be osmot­i­cal­ly absorbed through song, and all else forgotten.

Where break­throughs like The Wire and La Haine suc­ceed­ed is in their abil­i­ty to under­stand social depri­va­tion through a sys­tem­at­ic lens. Rather than look­ing at pover­ty as a soci­etal con­di­tion where peo­ple become inex­tri­ca­bly trapped by their envi­ron­ment, Urban Hymn focuss­es on a sin­gle case study of art sav­ing all. A tal­ent­ed pro­tag­o­nist is trapped by her tal­ent­less friend, and the friend is the cause rather than a fel­low vic­tim. In neglect­ing the back­sto­ries of the chil­dren who end up in a bro­ken care sys­tem, we fall into a murky ter­ri­to­ry where the fate of the less for­tu­nate is pre­sent­ed as if it depends pure­ly on wealthy vol­un­tarism, spawned large­ly by mid­dle-class guilt. Of course, art can and does pro­vide a con­struc­tive out­let for many, as the film’s delin­quent turned screen­writer Nick Moor­croft can right­ful­ly tes­ti­fy. The issue is that, much like the film itself, the char­ac­ters are well-inten­tioned but one-dimen­sion­al. The key mes­sage is loud and clear, but the nuance is lacking.

For Caton-Jones, this is a noble step-up, semi-redeemed by a feel-good sound­track, which fea­tures a cameo by Bil­ly Bragg – who appears in infomer­cial form, apro­pos of noth­ing, to give gui­tar lessons to young offend­ers (he does this off-screen, head­ing ini­tia­tive Jail Gui­tar Doors). In all, there are strong indi­vid­ual per­for­mances from a stel­lar cast, restrained by a nar­ra­tive that – though hon­est and heart­felt – is regret­ful­ly ten­u­ous and jazz-handsy.