Familiar ingredients are given a fresh shake-up in Ali & Ava, the fourth feature from British writer-director Clio Barnard. Not quite a love story, more a character study of two lonely misfits drawn together for emotional comfort, this contemporary social-realist drama is light on narrative substance but heavy on observational texture. A fictionalised scenario inspired by real people, the gritty blue-collar setting and culture-clash plot could easily have coalesced into a worthy sermon on some obvious hot-button issues. But thankfully, Barnard mostly avoids heavy-handed melodrama in favour of something more nuanced, humane and lyrical.
Backed by BBC Films, Ali & Ava returns the director of The Arbor (2010) and The Selfish Giant (2013) to her cinematic home turf of Bradford in the northern English county of Yorkshire, an economically deprived post-industrial town renowned for its large population of first and second-generation immigrants of South Asian heritage. The film’s slow-burn charm relies heavily on the likeability of its two main protagonists and the actors who inhabit them, Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook. The pair certainly share a strong screen chemistry and give richly layered performances, which helps excuse a skimpy narrative and a couple of clumsily engineered plot twists. World premiere in Cannes, Ali & Ava then played in competition in Karlovy Vary in August, and makes its North American debut at TIFF later this month. Universal themes and Barnard’s respected track record should ensure wide interest, though thick local accents and specific British context may prove limiting.
School classroom assistant Ava (Rushbrook) is a mother and grandmother dealing stoically with the daily pressures of middle age, a low-income job and recent bereavement. Ali (Akhtar) is a tireless joker, genial landlord, amateur DJ and aspiring musician who is struggling to accept the bitter truth that his marriage to Runa (Ellora Torchia) has ended. Even though the two still live together on friendly terms, largely to avoid upsetting his conservative Muslim family, she already has a new boyfriend and an escape plan in place.
Thus Ava and Ali both bring huge amounts of emotional baggage when their playful flirtation slowly crosses the line into hesitant romance. Racism and cultural stereotypes create tension on both sides, especially in the hostile reaction of Ava’s grown-up son Callum (Shaun Thomas) to her potential new boyfriend. This jarring subplot is at odds with the film’s subtle and cautiously cheerful celebration of multicultural Britain. Barnard gives it supporting context with a dark family back story, but it still feels oddly clumsy.
Barnard’s films draw on a long lineage of gritty British realism, notably the work of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh – indeed, Rushbrook made her film debut in Leigh’s Secrets & Lies (1996). But, refreshingly, the depiction of underclass lives here feels more intimate and immersive than righteous or preachy. Ali is a landlord who makes a profit from poor tenants, which would make him an automatic villain in a more dogmatic film than this, but he is also a compassionate, jocular and popular figure in his community. Ava may come from a rough neighborhood with limited opportunities, but she also has a university diploma, a keen intelligence and a rich cultural hinterland. While class, race and family barriers create dramatic friction, they do not define the entire narrative. These socially marginalised characters are believably flawed humans, not pawns on an ideological chessboard.
In common with Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay and other contemporary film-makers working in the social-realist tradition, Barnard often departs from the genre’s narrow stylistic conventions with flashes of visual poetry. While the dialogue in Ali & Ava has naturalistic, semi-improvised feel, Ole Bratt Birkeland’s camerawork is touched with magic, finding luminous beauty even in scenes of urban poverty and bleak rain-drenched landscapes.
Ali & Ava is also awash with music, from Bob Dylan to Rachmaninov, punk rock to country ballads. While Ava was raised on the folk songs of her Irish ancestry, which finds a communal outlet at karaoke events, Ali spends much of the film locked inside his headphones, dancing alone to pounding techno-pop tunes on top of his car. The ill-matched duo’s clashing music tastes is initially the source of some teasing antagonism, but their differences also becomes a way of bonding and breaking down barriers.
A small story with a big heart, Ali & Ava is Barnard’s slightest and most conventional film to date, but also her most gently optimistic. It celebrates human connection and the kindness of strangers, with music, laughter, love and sensual pleasure depicted as central elements of working-class life. These are the riches of the poor.
Director: Clio Barnard
Screenplay: Clio Barnard
Cast: Adeel Akhtar, Claire Rushbrook, Ellora Torchia, Shaun Thomas
Producers: Tracy O’Riordan
Cinematography: Ole Bratt Birkeland
Production design: Stéphane Collonge
Editing: Maya Maffioli
Music: Harry Escott
Sound: Rashad Hall-Heinz
Production companies: BBC Film (UK), British Film Institute (UK), Screen Yorkshire (UK), Moonspun Films (UK)
World sales: Altitude, London
Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Crystal Globe competition)
In English
95 minutes
