Last Resort

2000
7.2| 1h13m| en
Details

Tanya leaves Moscow with her street-wise 10-year-old son Artiom to meet her English fiancée in London. But after he fails to turn up at the airport, Tanya, intent on staying in England, is forced to apply for political asylum and transferred to Stonehaven, a grimy former seaside resort where refugees are housed. Tanya gradually develops a relationship with an amusement arcade manager, who helps them escape. She must then decide whether to stay with him or return to Russia.

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Reviews

Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch
SunnyHello Nice effects though.
Pluskylang Great Film overall
Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Lee Tyrrell Having rented this film completely at random from my college library and placed it in my PS2 having no knowledge of what or who to expect from this film.A grim account of how refugees are treated in Britain, it certainly brought home a lot of feelings i already had about the underlying current of racism in our country, but also showed the character of Alfie (Paddy Considine) to be the typical nice guy, running round and generally being a good bloke.There is a certain degree of stereotype in this (the kids getting drunk so young, the nice British guy just looking for love, the fish out of water who learns to love), but a certain scary aspect of this film is the fact that these stereotypes may just be real life.. everyday, somewhere in the armpit of the country.To sum up, though, those with pre-misconceptions of immigrants and asylum seekers being dirty money launderers will find themselves very horrified to see the truth in this film, as that is exactly what the director has portrayed in this brilliant and (for me) surprise piece of cinema.
justingmorrison This is a stylistically outstanding film, where Pavilkovsky pares down the usual omnipresent noise of the modern world and allows the protagonists to interact in controlled conditions, like a professor in a laboratory. The result is something uniquely beautiful that exists somewhere on the outskirts of modern film-making, at least from my humble perspective. In a sense, we feel as if we've been allowed access to world outside of our own, close to, but vitally different from ours. As a bad analogy, think of Reservoir Dogs, where Tarantino constructs a microcosm which looks familiar to us, but the events and the atmosphere within that microcosm are alien to us. (N.B. That is where parallels between the two films end!).Considine turns out another sublime performance, showing us his ability to court our empathy, and then throw it back in our face when his simmering rage boils over (see also A Room For Romeo Brass and My Summer Of Love). Dina Korzun provides the perfect foil as a picture of stoic vulnerability. She plays the role of mother, friend, struggling provider, lover, and jilted lover without ever missing a beat, and in a perfect world would have received an Oscar nomination for her role.To me, this film embodies the joy of film watching. You quickly realize that in order to appreciate it, you must surrender yourself to it and allow it to lead you where it will, unquestioningly. And the rewards are plentiful. For me, the beauty lies in the simplicity, the lack of hyperbole, the feeling that despite the director's attempts to present an abstracted vision of the modern world, he is still commenting heavily on it, and there is something within for us to reflect on. Hollywood could never, and perhaps would never, make a film like this, there's nothing in-your-face witty or clever about it, but as a reflection of a world that actually exists, it is absolutely uncanny.
zedheadUK A few days have past since I saw Last Resort and it's still on my mind, especially Paddy Considine's performance. Last Resort is undeniably technically good, shot really well, great locations, top editing etc. The script is good but it's the performances that really make this drama as good as it is. I would love to know how this director got these actors to behave so realistically in every situation for every scene. All three leads were fantastic but Paddy Considine constantly stole the screen and brought humour along with him for the ride. I would recommend you watch this if you ever get chance, it is believable, rich, funny and lovely.
Paul Creeden A glowing review of this film on the radio enticed me. The review, I recalled in retrospect, was about the film's technical points. I experienced the film as a sad and predictable home movie about a Russian woman and child, who simply do not know what they are doing with their lives. The one counterpoint character in the life-in-the-gulag story line, played very well by Paddy Considine, kept the film alive, in my opinion. I was impressed with the film's ending. There was a message about responsibility and self victimization that was very refreshing. I did not feel that the film offered entertainment, even in my broadest definition, but it did offer a look at poverty, brutish bureaucracy and the consequences of ignorance in the whole realm of illegal immigration. Perhaps it could be shown regularly at airports in developing countries.