Why I love a Sea­side Weepie

In the 2013 dark com­e­dy Everyone’s Going to Die, writer/​director col­lec­tive Jones set out their stall ear­ly. Melanie (Nora Tschirn­er) wakes up dazed and blur­ry-eyed from a house par­ty, dressed as Char­lie Chap­lin. In the cold light of day, she tells fel­low guest Ali ​“I’m lost,” and then smokes a cig­a­rette. The scene sets the tone per­fect­ly for the rest of the film and ulti­mate­ly encap­su­lates what every ​‘sea­side weepie’ is about.

Movies set in coastal towns and sea­side resorts are noth­ing new (Brighton Rock and Local Hero are but two pop­u­lar exam­ples) but this sub-genre of British cin­e­ma has only emerged in the last 20 years or so, arguably brought to the atten­tion of larg­er audi­ences through Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light. No doubt this curi­ous set of films is influ­enced by the renewed inter­est in these sea­side loca­tions by DFLs (peo­ple who are Down From Lon­don) who are, for bet­ter or worse, chang­ing the land­scapes of coastal towns as we know them. These often low-bud­get indie flicks tell the sto­ries of shift­less mis­fits teth­ered to their pasts, who long to move on but are stuck and left behind.

Lat­er in Everyone’s Going to Die, Melanie – who we learn is a Ger­man twen­tysome­thing far from home – is in the car of her new acquain­tance and fel­low lost soul Ray (Rob Knighton) whom she met in a café and is now aim­less­ly drift­ing around the fic­tion­al sea­side town with. From the pas­sen­ger seat, with the grey sea below, Melanie laments how her life would have been much eas­i­er if she had been born into a fam­i­ly of goat herders. Then she could just herd goats all day in the moun­tains, and not wor­ry about liv­ing up to the expec­ta­tions of her high-achiev­ing fam­i­ly or the soci­etal pres­sure of ​“doing some­thing you love”. Her par­ents see her as inca­pable of fin­ish­ing any­thing, which is why she is now con­tem­plat­ing mar­riage to the shady and elu­sive Rich (Brett Gold­stein). Their engage­ment is the rea­son she’s been liv­ing on the south coast.

From the illu­mi­nat­ed arcade amuse­ments of Dym­church to the dis­used rail­way tracks near the har­bour arm in Folke­stone – where most of the film was shot – the beach­es, parks, cafes, and pala­tial hotels of a bygone era per­fect­ly com­ple­ment the type of som­bre self-reflec­tion Melanie and Ray’s exis­ten­tial crises require to play out.

Glimpses from the hey­day of the great British sea­side resort are every­where in a weepie. The car­a­van parks, grand Vic­to­ri­an plea­sure piers, prom­e­nades, and emp­ty band­stands help sus­tain the irre­sistible melan­choly mood through­out, cre­at­ing a bit­ter­sweet nos­tal­gia that is com­fort­ing to escape to for 90 min­utes. Although most peo­ple watch­ing a sea­side weepie will be famil­iar with the imagery of British sea­side cul­ture, when you are watch­ing one that is set right where you grew up and you know every place that appears on screen, you can’t help but feel more invest­ed in the sto­ry. Like when you lis­ten to a par­tic­u­lar song and it feels like the singer is talk­ing direct­ly to you. That’s what it felt like for me watch­ing Everyone’s Going to Die for the first time. I’d walked across the same beach­es, streets, and ter­rain, feel­ing the same emo­tions and think­ing the same thoughts.

Niall MacCormick’s com­ing-of-age dra­ma Alba­tross also cre­ates a sense of being trapped with nowhere to run – quite lit­er­al­ly in this case, with the sto­ry tak­ing place on the rugged coast­line of the Isle of Man. When the irrev­er­ent and aspir­ing young writer Emelia (Jes­si­ca Brown Find­lay) rocks up to The Cliff House Bed and Break­fast, she begins a friend­ship with wall­flower Beth (Felic­i­ty Jones). It sets them both off on a path of self-dis­cov­ery, that sad­ly – but out of neces­si­ty in a sea­side weepie – must ulti­mate­ly see them go their sep­a­rate ways.

The out­ra­geous Emelia takes Beth under her wing and Beth feeds off the charis­ma and exu­ber­ance of her new best friend. How­ev­er, Emelia has also caught the atten­tion of Beth’s fail­ing writer father Jonathan, who offers to nur­ture her lit­er­ary tal­ents. When Beth learns of the affair between the two, the fall­out sets the scene for a cathar­tic end­ing that sees the girls pick up the pieces of their lives and leave the island for bet­ter times.

Beth leaves to study at Cam­bridge and Emelia final­ly finds the courage to write her own sto­ry, shed­ding the false iden­ti­ty that her fam­i­ly gave her. As the cred­its roll the audi­ence is led to believe that they too could sort out their own lives, if only they were set to an uplift­ing, rous­ing song. The hope­ful and inspir­ing feel­ing you are left with is a big part of the appeal of the sea­side weepie.

Like Everyone’s Going to Die, Alba­tross is a sto­ry of peo­ple who meet at dif­fer­ent cross­roads in their lives and who are brought out of their malaise by their new­found friend­ship and the pos­si­bil­i­ty that per­haps there is a bet­ter life out there some­where. Films like these do a great job of min­ing the sad­ness and com­e­dy out of sea­side resorts to tell heart-warm­ing sto­ries about the human con­di­tion, but some sea­side weepies have used the back­drop of our sea­side towns to tell sto­ries that are much dark­er in tone. These show the real strug­gles and drudgery of dai­ly life many peo­ple face, set to the famil­iar sound­track of squawk­ing seabirds and fam­i­ly amusements.

One of the most jar­ring and impact­ful of these films must be James Garner’s award-win­ning Jel­ly­fish, set in Mar­gate, which focus­es on Sarah, (Liv Hill) who is forced to care for her depressed mum and younger sib­lings whilst also jug­gling school. Encour­aged by a teacher, she finds a bit of light in her bleak exis­tence when she dis­cov­ers a tal­ent for stand-up com­e­dy. Jel­ly­fish is less con­cerned with giv­ing the audi­ence a cosy, nos­tal­gia-bathed sto­ry about hopes and dreams, and more inter­est­ed in giv­ing a social com­men­tary on a bro­ken sys­tem, where Sarah is let down by every adult in her life. It gives a real insight into some of the prob­lems many tra­di­tion­al coastal towns have faced for years, show­ing a side many daytrip­pers and tourists don’t see or may not be aware of. Pover­ty, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, tourism, and a flawed care sys­tem are all touched upon.

18 years before Jel­ly­fish was made, Paweł Pawlikowski’s Last Resort shows a far more des­o­late and lost ver­sion of Mar­gate, before Dream­land was reimag­ined and cre­atives and artists moved in. Like Jel­ly­fish Last Resort is mak­ing a state­ment, this time about the UK’s con­vo­lut­ed and prob­lem­at­ic immi­gra­tion sys­tem. The film focus­es on the plight of a Russ­ian woman, Tanya (Dina Korzun) who is sent with her son to a deten­tion cen­tre near an aban­doned sea­side amuse­ment park after claim­ing polit­i­cal asylum.

Like Melanie, Sarah, and Beth, Tanya is an under­dog and dream­er try­ing to get some­where. This is anoth­er aspect of these films I admire so much – you root for the char­ac­ters to get to where they need to be. Despite all the odds seem­ing­ly being stacked against them, they keep going, and when you come away from the film you hope you can be as coura­geous when faced with such adversity.

When­ev­er I find a film that is set in a sea­side coastal town or resort I can’t resist. Whether it’s a com­ing-of-age dra­ma like Alba­tross or a som­bre social com­men­tary like Jel­ly­fish, inten­tion­al­ly or not they all offer me a glimpse back into my child­hood. I’m trans­port­ed back to fam­i­ly hol­i­days in Bogn­or, and long car trips to Great Yarmouth, just from hear­ing the cries of seag­ulls in the open­ing scenes of Jel­ly­fish, or by watch­ing Ray play the arcades in Dym­church. These films remind me of a child­hood spent in these places I can bare­ly remem­ber that seems more spe­cial with every pass­ing year.