Film Review: Cherry Tree Lane

I'm just going to hover ominously outside for a little while until the Job Centre opens up.

Welcome to Cherry Tree Lane. We have a 'white picket fence' policy here, and any residents who deviate from that lifestyle 'choice' will find themselves subject to a compulsory sodomisation order, courtesy of our local Neighbourhood Watch Officer. We do it because we care, you see?

Don't fuck with us; we know where you live.

As a general rule, I find that when I am having trouble pitching my film to investors, labelling it as 'urban' often helps to get them on board and shift a few extra cinema tickets to boot. The concept of 'urban' - a word which essentially means nothing more than 'an area or population characterised by agglomerised development and a greater, more dense population' - has been applied in the name of marketing to clothing brands, musical genres, art, literature, theatre, residential developments, political electorates and, increasingly, to films.

This is the sort of meaningless wank which clueless, big-shot Hollywood Producers (that's 'Cunts' to the rest of us) think will appeal to us teenagers. I did buy it, though, so it looks to me as if their market research was bang on. Unfortunately, I am not prepared to start watching 'Legally Blonde' just to throw them off-track. Because it's fucking shit. As is everyone who has ever seen it.

The word 'urban' has changed over the years; where it once carried no more of a stigma than the word 'Burberry' originally used to, like Burberry, it now carries with it a far more ominous, dreadfully working-class undertone. Where we originally employed the use of the word 'Urban' primarily as a descriptive adjective, we now essentially use it as a by-word for Chavdom; a smug, judgey, I'm-much-better-than-you superiority trip to distinguish between us; the successful uber-class, and them; the cunts.

We are prepared to bum you into submission if you step out of fucking line.
Now take down that cunting balloon from your kid's birthday party and remove that tongue-in-cheek garden knome
or you will be picking my condemnation out of your arsehole for the next decade.

The Plebian conversion from 'real life' to 'screen' has made quite the successful transition, and recent blood-and-gore box office success stories 'Eden Lake', 'They' ('Ils'), 'Harry Brown' and 'Cherry Tree Lane' all have in common two main characters, each doomed to fight each other perpetually to the death in a continuous class-war of epic cinematic proportions; the Middle Class (self-important, wingeing, chino's-reliant, art-gallery-visiting wastes-of-space) and the Chavs (synthetic-material-clad malcontents).

Hello, we are the Middle Class. We enjoy buying groceries from Waitrose supermarket,
bragging to our friends about how 'different' we are, playing Tennis and buggery.

Hello, we are the working class. We like mugging people, dropping out of school, getting pregnant at an innapropriately young age and shouting at each other in the street while drunk.

The Machavellian character is difficult to distinguish here on 'Cherry Tree Lane', but rather than cause controversy I shall assume, as I am encouraged to do, that the baddies are those nestling unhappily on the poverty line. Alternatively, the Marxists amongst you may choose to adopt a nihilistic perspective and dismiss both factions as equally worthy of moral condemnation.

Hello, my name is 'Urban'. You can tell who I am by my poor complexion and badly-cut clothing made from synthetic fibres.
I am also easily identifiable by my voice, which sounds like somebody with a severed tongue being forced to do a Dick-Van-Dyke impersonation in a popular nightclub at three in the morning after ten pints of lager, two glass of wine, five Sambuca shots, three lines of Coke, a horse tranquiliser, three LSD tabs, a Rabies vaccination and a punitive arse-raping for not having complied with local Neighbourhood Watch residential obligations.

And so, to Cherry Tree Lane. Here we have Mr and Mrs Bland, going about their dull, insignificant, Cath-Kidston-lined lives on a bourgeois street, in a bourgeois neighbourhood presided over by a bourgeois MP. Mrs Bland is wearing a very safe frock and disussing her professional life unconvincingly on the telephone, Mr Bland is waiting for his wife to put tea on the table. I know, I know; why doesn't he get his own fucking tea ready? We'll never know. The message in 'Cherry Tree Lane' isn't about the Broccoli; it is a comment on the nature of society, on our social demographic, social relations and social inequality. How very worthy....except for all that mindless violence of course. Just to be clear, though; Cherry Tree Lane is not the sort of social commentary which wishes to challenge the boundaries of male and female stereotypes. Y'know, because misogyny and sexual stereotyping is not as important as blindly categorising the working class as violent career criminals.

Sexist pig.

Mr and Mrs Bland kick off the evening by eating dinner around a puzzlingly miniature dinner table; the sort of dinner table that you would usually expect to find at a low-end greasy spoon or space-poor parisien cafe. Neither party asks: 'Hey, here's an idea. Why don't we just buy a bigger fucking table?', but perhaps opinions of this nature are implicit. Perhaps the miniature dinner table at Cherry Tree Lane is actually a metaphor for the comparative poverty of the working class in comparison with the plush, financially resplendant surroundings of the Bland residence. It isn't for me to say, although if I were to say anything at all about Cherry Tree Lane it would be this: 'You can't made a valid point about social mobility in an environment laden with stereotypical assumptions about wealth, class, socio-economic relations and poorly-drawn-out fictional charicatures. Also; your chavs weren't nearly scary enough. They were only about as scary as when, say, you think that you may have had the wrong pizza order delivered and have already waved off the delivery boy, but then you realise that he is only several metres away and can still be recalled, and that it IS actually your order after all'.

Massive house; £650,000. Miniature table; £35.00. Arguments in massive house concerning pointlessly miniature table; priceless.

Mr and Mrs Bland are enjoying their relentlessly tasteful evening when a knock at the door signifies a change of pace (I know, I know; thank GOD). Mr Bland goes to open the front door and is promptly punched in the face by a member of the working class. Aha! You may think. Things are about to get interesting! Don't get your hopes up; there is far more tedium to come. The house invaders (a bunch of thin, unremarkable, middle-class actors) take over the Bland residence by throwing some Broccoli onto the floor (not the Broccoli you Bastards!), and, er, by sitting on the sofa. Not the cunting sofa! Yes, the sofa.

The Dummies Guide to dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses.

 Mr Bland is tied up and left to have a little nap on the floor; Mrs Bland gets to have a nice sit down on the sofa next to the rapiest member of the house invaders. They have a bit of a chat; more an 'I'm going to kill you' sort of chat than the typical house prices fare, but a chat nonetheless. Mr Bland has a bit of a bloody nose, presumably from when he was punched in the face earlier, but it may be that his bloody nose marks a silent protest on the tax cuts instigated by the Conservative Government. Bloody noses and death threats aside, in all other respects the house invadors are relatively underwhelming and spend their occupation of Bland territory discussing DVDs, asking Mr Bland if he has any porn channels, and nearly eating the Broccoli.  The Last House on the Left it ain't.

Throw my Broccoli on the floor, will you? I am going to Fuck.You.Up.

The villain of the piece repeatedly threatens to rape Mrs Bland. She doesn't look all that up for it, to be honest. After about half an hour of near-continuous rape threats, there is a part of you that thinks it might actually be easier to get raped than to listen to any more frontin' from one of these home-invading cunts. Mrs Bland seems to agree, because she basically tells him to get the fuck on with it. Which he does. So far, so 'Straw Dogs'.

Straw Dogs; sofa-based terror has been done before. And done better, too.

Mr Bland is left to listen to the inane chatter of Home Invader #2; lines uttered by an actor who looks remarkably similar to Forest Gump's friend Bubba in Forest Gump.

Bubba Gump.

Home Invador #2 from 'Cherry Tree Lane'.

When Mrs Bland and her new friend the sex offender return, the space invadors reveal the reason why they have broken into the bland household; they have come to 'fuck up' Bland Junior, Mr and Mrs Bland's Son.

Hello, friend.
I come in peace. On your face.

Bland Junior arrives home. The Space Invadors 'fuck him up'. I'm not really sure what 'fucking him up' involves, however I am relatively certain that it is unpleasant. The final fifteen minutes are neither tense nor particularly diverting; Mr Bland is awarded the opportunity of murdering the little brother of one of the Space Invadors (he doesn't), Junior Bland is on left on the verge of death and nearly dies (he doesn't), Mrs Bland spends an unnecessary amount of time intermittently squeaking, raging at Mr Bland, putting her clothes back on and wingeing about the miniature table (not so much the last thing, to be honest). By the time the credits rolled, I was left with a terrible feeling of abject disinterest and complete apathy; perhaps this must be how the working class feel about eating anything which has not been deep-fried?

So what have we learnt from 'Cherry Tree Lane'?

• A hatred of Broccoli traverses socio-economic boundaries.
• If your dining-room table makes you look like the Big Friendly Giant at a Borrower convention, it is probably tim to upgrade.
• Horror films don't need a 'message', kay? Unless you are George A. Romero you probably won't be able to create a cinematic masterpiece which simultaneously terrifies and preaches; nobody wants to feel guilty at the cinema.