Review of Gosh 
Written by Julian Sandhurst


I contacted Mr Inucci, explaining that I wanted to review Gosh for R&D, 
and he was kind enough to supply a review copy. 

The film starts off slowly, with shots of the English countryside; I 
couldn't quite work out where, but I'm pretty sure it's the South of 
England. And within the first few minutes, we get the first of what 
turnsout to be the main drawback of the whole movie, the "special 
effects". The landscape goes out of focus, the colours change so that 
the grass is now orange, and the entire scene gradually pixillates to a 
single block of grey. 

We fade to a house, and there we meet the young Tina for the first time. 
The opening shot is of her back, arguing with her mother as teenagers 
do. They seem to be arguing about her clothes allowance. If you've 
already read the autobiography, you can kind of guess what this must be 
about. The camera tracks round, and you lean forward, eager for the 
first sighting. But Tina's mother moves, and Tina turns to follow her, 
so still, all we see is her back. Or can we? What's that you can just 
see on either side? 

Now we see Tina walking slowly to school; she doesn't seem eager for 
scholarship. This time we see a full frontal shot. Unfortnuately, it's 
winter, and in winter in England, you wear a heavy coat. Then the rain 
begins, and Tina puts up an umbrella. 

Tina gets to school, and we see her going into the cloakroom to take off 
her coat. At last, you think. The camera zooms in on the window, showing 
the raindrops, oozing down the glass in a very artistic manner. Then we 
follow Tina as she walks to the classroom - follow, as in from behind. 

Jane Horrocks plays the Schoolmistress, and her face very well portrays 
her feelings as Tina walks in to class. And her voice is, we feel, 
unnecessarily harsh as she tells her to sit down and pay attention. But 
then Janes voice fades into the background as we overhear the 
conversation of two of the boys in Tina's class. "Gotta be more than 
fifty" "Sixty, more like" "How does she get out of bed in the morning?" 
"I'd help her" and then lots of puerile sniggering. The camera tracks 
clockwise and dollies up to focus in on Tina's face, and we see the 
tears oozing down her cheek, then the focus changes and we see the 
windows again, and the rain oozing down the glass. Then the focus 
softens, and then the focus goes completely blurred. 

When the focus returns, we're looking at a horse. Well, that's one way 
to move the story along. The horse is standing looking horsey, and a 
blonde woman is brushing his coat. Yes, it's Tina. Yes, she's wearing 
overalls. The overalls are over all, of course. She's speaking to the 
horse. "Now Muffin, stand still while Tina brushes you." The horse 
whinnies, and whuffles. The camera tracks back to a long distance shot, 
showing how alone the woman and horse are, and at this point, Tina turns 
to face us, but at that distance, you can't see anything. 

In the next sequence, Peter Wyngarde shows us his dramatic range by 
giving Tina a telling off, apparently she made some equine boo-boo to do 
with withers and fetlocks (we get to see Tina's hair down her back). We 
see him working himself up into a rage, bullying the poor girl; 
dissolve to her face which seems to be dissolving in tears again - and 
guess what, it's raining, and we see the water dripping down the horse's 
face outside. It rains a fair bit in England, but this is getting a bit much.

Well, I'm not going to describe the whole film, scene by scene. It's 
very artistic, with some great camera effects. The plot seems to be to 
see how many ways the director can make Tina cry, and the shoot is how 
many ways he can show her without showing what everyone is wanting to 
see. 

Without giving the game away, I can reveal that about halfway through 
the film, the director decided that he had built the suspense enough (so 
if you get an hour into this, don't give up), and from then on, the game
seems to be to show just how difficult it can be when your weight
distribution is all wrong. She seems to move very carefully, and even so
she seems to often almost fall over, only saving herself by clutching at
any nearby object. And that's where Steve Coogan comes in ...

There's also comedy here, when Tina goes to town to buy new clothes. A 
dress is out of the question, of course, and so is a blouse, so it's a
sweater she's looking for. And to get a really large size, she visits the
Big and Tall men's shop. The sequence between Tina and the shop assistant
who is under the impression that she's buying for a friend is hilarious,
but when she takes her coat off to try it on, the reaction from the
shop assistant and the other shoppers in the emporium could leave you wetting
yourself if you aren't careful.

It's a sad film, really, showing how alone every human being ultimately is, and
how what you might think to be a curse is actually a blessing in disguise,
which what you think is a curse, actually turns out to be quite useful.
I was powerfully reminded of Fauxingham's remake of "Ugly Duckling" at times,
yet with overtones of "The Watermelon Patch", that quintessential movie
of life in the Deep South. And all the way through the movie, I was trying
to guess who they'd gotten to play Tina, and it was only when the credits
rolled at then end that I realised what I should have known all along;
Tina Small - herself.