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Comes A Bright Day is the story of Sam (Craig Roberts), a young man who works in a London hotel, running errands for the hotel manager and guests while making plans for the restaurant he will open one day with best friend Elliot (Anthony Welsh). On one of these errands to a jewellery store however, Anthony gets caught up in a robbery which very quickly turns into a hostage situation. With store owner Charlie (Timothy Spall) and employee-slash-new-crush Mary (Imogen Poots), the hostages try their best to figure out a solution to their situation — but the increasingly erratic thief Cameron (Kevin McKidd) isn’t making things any easier.

One of the most interesting things about this film I thought was the choice of Sam’s age, and how it relates to how he’s portrayed, and even affecting the story. The character is in his early twenties — finished with school but only at the beginning of his “career”. Sure, there are other films with characters around this age, and you may wonder why I think it’s such a big deal, but just have a think about it. First of all, think of a film that has main characters of this age. Then, make sure they’re not students, unemployed, disenfranchised, super rich, etc. Lastly, give them a (relatively) normal life. Not so many now, are there? The reason I think it makes the film more interesting (than if the main character was older, more secure) is because it affects how they speak, how they act, how they make decisions. And it’s also nice to see people of a certain age being portrayed this way. You know, normal.

The cast all fare well, which gives the film another area to be proud of. Roberts’ Sam is kind of an everyman, in an endearingly try-hard way. Poots’ Mary is quite nice, and for a small role, I really liked what Welsh brought to his scenes as Elliot as well. Spall, being the only actor I knew by name going into the film, is a far cry from Wormtail (and if you don’t get this reference, will you go read/watch a Harry Potter book/film already please?!) and his Charlie is the kindly, older gentleman with a bit of a twist. My favourite though has got to be McKidd’s thief, Cameron. At turns reasonable and then insane, there is a certain kind of desperation and charm to the character that I thought McKidd brought out. For his debut feature, writer/director Simon Aboud has done really well pulling this mostly-unknown cast together for an engaging hostage story that doesn’t feel too worn-out, as these plots tend to get.

From left: Berlinale rep, Aboud, Roberts

At the Q & A session after the screening, Aboud talked about, among other things, his writing process (he literally came up with the title first, before anything else), the casting of Roberts who he didn’t know at the time, and my own question *** POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT *** Was Cameron’s growing fascination towards Mary supposed to be an inverted Stockholm Syndrome — the kidnapper developing emotions for the hostage instead of the other way round? The answer from Aboud was that this part of Cameron’s storyline was actually written to act as a kind of rival to Sam for Mary’s affection, and that the scene where Cameron corners Mary and breaks down was a form of begging for forgiveness for what he has put her through. *** END ALERT ***

Comes A Bright Day is a stylish little thriller that has enough tension, drama and humour that will keep you entertained for its fitting hour and a half run time.

3/5

IMDb listing