This British film, both written and directed by Yorkshire-born Clio Barnard, is a tender love story – but an unconventional one in many respects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, the setting: the work was shot entirely on location in Bradford with its terraced houses and grim vistas. Then the structure: while it follows the classic three-part narrative of friendship, division, reconciliation, almost the entire film is devoted to the first slow-burning segment of this traditional triptych. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next the music: both principals love their music but have very different tastes which gradually converge, so we hear a lot of (loud) music of an amazingly eclectic nature: Hindi to Czech, Dylan to Rachmaninoff, Buzzcocks to The Specials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Above all, this is a different tale of affection because of the characters. Both are middle-aged Northerners with their own ethnic heritage; both have had troubled marriages which have left them damaged; both have close extended families; both are gentle and caring. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ali is a British-Pakistani who is a small-scale local landlord with aspirations to be a DJ, while Ava has Irish roots and works as a school assistant having obtained a degree as an adult. Barnard gives us a portrait of each before bringing them together in a car ride in the rain and exploring the growing attraction over a lunar month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook are simply wonderful as the eponymous couple and we ache for them to be together.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This British film, both written and directed by Yorkshire-born Clio Barnard, is a tender love story – but an unconventional one in many respects. First, the setting: the work was shot entirely on location in Bradford with its terraced houses and grim vistas. Then the structure: while it follows the classic three-part narrative of friendship, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27767"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27769,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27767\/revisions\/27769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}