Boy A

Exceptional UK drama about a young man released from prison for a grave childhood crime and his attempts to live a good life under a new identity. Performances are excellent all around here, especially from Andrew Garfield in the lead. The flashback editing structure used to gradually reveal the childhood incident is one of the best examples of this kind of thing I've seen. Perhaps most surprising is that a film which uses so many extreme closeups in combination with over the shoulder shots succeeds with the style, being incredibly candid and engaging, and not irritating me once – because I traditionally associate the use of endless extreme closups in drama with being irritated. A transparently great, tense, affecting and though-provoking film.