Nil by Mouth

Gary Oldman's "Nil by Mouth" descends into a domestic hell of violence, drugs and booze, where a man can kick his pregnant wife and then, drunk, scrape out the words "My Baby" on the wallpaper with his bloody fingernails. It takes place in the pubs and streets of South London, where the actor grew up, and is dedicated enigmatically, "In memory of my father." We want to stand back out of the way: Something primal, needful and anguished is going on here.

Using a hand-held camera and closeup style, Oldman plunges into the middle of this family as its members spend a night at their local pub. At first we don't understand all the relationships, but Oldman uses the right approach: These people know one another so intimately and in such fearsome ways that any "establishing" scenes would dilute the impact.

The center of authority in the film is Janet (Laila Morse), the worn blond mother whose factory job is one of the family's few steady sources of income. Her own aged, feisty mother, Kath (Edna Dore), is still around. Janet's daughter is Valerie (Kathy Burke, who won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival).

Val's husband, Ray (Ray Winstone), is a violent drunk whose rage alternates with self-pity. Val's brother, Janet's son, is Billy (Charlie Creed-Miles). He has a drug habit. Ray's best friend, Mark (Jamie Forman), is emotionally dependent on him--maybe he's an excitement junkie, who feeds on the moments when Ray explodes.

This family weeps, bleeds and endures. Billy, who lives with Val and Ray, is thrown out of the house after some money is missing; Ray beats him and bites his nose, and Billy staggers into a bleak dawn--homeless, although he still lives on the outskirts of the family, like a wounded wolf following the pack.

A day or so later, Ray walks into a pub and finds his wife, Val, playing pool with a casual friend. Ray seems cheerful at first, but he has the personality changes of the alcoholic, and orders her home, where he weeps and explodes in a jealous rage, sure that Val (who is large with child) was having an affair with the man. She miscarries after his beating.

One of the film's key scenes comes after Val returns home and is seen, black, blue and bandaged, by her mother. She tells Janet she was struck by a hitand-run driver. Janet clearly knows Ray beat her daughter, but accepts the story. The dialogue here is precise in its observation; Val's details all have to do with the location ("You know, down by the shops"), as if the story is proved by the fact that the shops exist. Her mother vows revenge on the bastard driver who committed the hit and run; both women understand this is code for Ray. ("You know what it's like going to hospitals late at night," Janet says at one point. In most healthy families, this is not something everyone knows.) The film's portrait of street life in South London is unflinching and observant. Billy, drifting, looking for a fix, gets involved in a strange fight over a tattooed street person and his little pet dog. He goes to his mother's factory to borrow money for a fix, and then asks her to drive him to a dealer.