Hard-to-watch but worthwhile coming of age film about a young woman growing up in mainly-white and poor Barking. She lives with her feckless, hostile Mum and younger sister in a council flat, where there's lots of booze, and occasional partying, but not much food or comfort. She aspires to be a dance of the break-dancing kind, and sometimes practices in an abandoned empty flat on the estate. Her Mum gets a new boyfriend who is nicer to her, and the family, than anyone else, but her growing teenage sexuality means that she's attracted to the boyfriend, with disastrous results.
Lots more to say but I don't want to add any spoilers. I note in passing the fact that it's probably about 2010 but there are several bits of technology (personal CD players, for example) that look really dated.
This film deservedly won awards and is very much worth watching. Amazing that some of the places in it were only a few miles from where I grew up, but I never ever visited them. Tilbury in particular looks like it belongs in another universe, with a mixture of industrial, post-industrial, agricultural and scrubland landscapes, with scattered pockets of shiny new housing estates.
Watched on Netflix - the best film I've seen there for a while.
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