Andrew Collins's Blog, page 50

He's back

Jonathan Ross, that is. Me, too. He has been away from the chat show circuit for 13 months. I was away for last week's Telly Addict – well, not away, that would be quite strange, but I had too many other jobs on, including a 6 Music show at the very time I shoot at the Guardian on a Friday morning, and I couldn't physically squeeze it in – but I'm back in the chair at an angle again this week, reviewing, yes, Saturday Night With Jonathan Ross (as it isn't called) on ITV1; the brilliant Appropriate Adult, also on ITV1; and Mark Cousins' epic The Story Of Film, on More4. That is all. The link is here.

Foreign affairs

Two trips to the Curzon to catch up on: The Skin I Live In and Sarah's Key, or La piel que habito and Elle s'appelait Sarah, as they're known in their native tongues. We'll start with Sarah's Key, as I saw that last weekend: a French adaptation of a bestselling French novel, by French journalist and author Tatiana de Rosnay (although she, like the story, has moved around a lot: born in Paris, schooled in Boston and Norwich, then back to Paris – and she writes books in French and English). It stars that other supremely natural straddler of French and English, Kristin Scott Thomas, whose presence in a film of either nationality is entirely indicative of quality. Born in Cornwall, she moved to France aged 19, where she still lives, and is the perfect choice to play Julia, an American journalist living in France who becomes obsessed with tracking down the Jewish girl, Sarah, who once lived in the old Parisian apartment her husband has bought – in fact, she lived in it until a fateful day in 1942 when her family were rounded up by the French police, along with 13,000 other Jews, and shipped off to a rural transit camp and then Auschwitz. Because Julia believes that her in-laws were now complicit in the atrocity, she need to achieve closure by finding Sarah, whom she is convinced survived.

So, yes, it's another holocaust drama, half of which takes place in the past but harrowingly recreates not just the transportation and the transit camp itself, but the horror, confusion and degradation of the so-called "Vél' d'Hiv roundup", whereby thousands of Jews were herded into the Vélodrome d'Hiver, an indoor cycling track which became holding pen without adequate sanitation, ventilation or any other kind of facility, and little food, and where many took their own lives.

Mélusine Mayance plays the 10-year-old Sarah, a child of incredible courage and will, who persuades her little brother to lock himself inside a secret cupboard back at the house and leaves him there; she is thus wracked with guilt as the days and weeks pass by, and is determined to escape the French transit camp at Beaune-la-Rolande in order to fetch him. Mayance is like a young Saoirse Ronan and plays the part well.

Sarah's fictional story would have made a film on its own – especially as the Vél' d'Hiv roundup is as far as I know little known outside France – but by intercutting with the modern day and Julia's quest – which itself has repercussions on her own home life as it engulfs her and causes friction with her husband's famuly – Sarah's Key moves beyond being just another Holocaust drama. (That phrase was not meant to sound as glib as it did – I think you know what I mean.)

As Julia moves around, the dialogue shifts from French to English to French, and I must admit I preferred the sections that were in French, as it always feels weird when characters speak in English in a French film – also, I didn't much like the American or English characters, such as Julia's co-workers at the magazine she writes for. That said, it's a satisfying whole, quite clearly structured after the novel I'm guessing, and Aidan Quinn, an American actor you don't see enough of, brings gravitas and ease to a key protagonist in the final act.

Talking of which, there is a reveal in a climactic scene that may have worked on the page, but feels clunky and unrealistic in vision, unforgivably breaking the spell of the drama. But on the whole the film is well played – especially by veteran Niels Arestrup who was so good in Un Prophète and dominates the screen when he turns up in the final act – and the Holocaust sections strike a workable balance between horror and melodrama, and are well judged by director and co-writer Gilles Paquet-Brenner. (The tone is somewhere between Sophie's Choice, The Pianist and The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas.)

The Skin I Live In is Pedro Almodóvar's 18th film, and proves once again, as if it needed proving, that there is no filmmaker like him. I've been a fan since Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! in 1990 (after which, I went back to Women on The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and have been pretty much alongside ever since), although the more I see of his work, the more I think I understand him. He's all about his mother, of course, and about strong, dominant, independent women in general. Male characters in his world are often weak, or susceptible, or just plain bad. The women are where it's at. In The Skin I Live In, the main protagonist is a man, a frankly bonkers plastic surgeon played by Antonio Banderas, who we've not seen in an Almodóvar since Tie Me Up!, so that's headline news. In that, he was a lunatic who'd not escaped but been released from the asylum. Here, his character is regarded as sane by those around him, while his daughter (Blanca Suárez) is in psychiatric care, and is released at a key moment in the story. Pedro loves to have people going in and out of institutions, and to ask questions about the definitions of sane and sick.

Without giving anything away that isn't hinted at in the trailer or revealed early on, Banderas is keeping a young woman captive at his private Toledo clinic, Vera (Elena Anaya, previously cast in a small role in Talk To Her). We discover why, and how this situation arose very gradually, much of the backstory told in lengthy, overlapping flashbacks. So it and Sarah's Key have that in common, albeit not much else, especially in terms of style

This is melodrama, pure and simple. It very deliberately recalls classic Hollywood thrillers of the 50s and 60s, especially those of Alfred Hitchcock, and its mad scientist angle is straight out of 1930s horror and beyond. It's brightly coloured, as ever, with the pale, sanitised nature of the surgeon's house a perfect blank canvas for all manner of symbolic splashes of colour – and highly charged works of art full of nude flesh and a mixture of rhapsody and assault. Almodóvar has called it a horror movie "without shocks or screams" which is a fair enough approximation. It's certainly disturbing, and probes beneath the skin of many taboo issues, including rape, and sado-masochism, and human experimentation. But it's only a 15 certificate, and it's not too explicit. Almodóvar manages to mine these seams without resorting to exploitation. (You may, or may not, remember my reaction to Von Trier's Antichrist, which I applauded for its mood, themes and intelligence, but questioned the need for its explicit violence. There are no such worries here; even the surgical scenes are moderately done. Almodóvar is confident enough to tell his horrific tale – or that of the source novella, on which it's only loosely based – without rubbing our noses in it. It's creepy and uneasy enough without.)

Anaya is as beautiful and supple and ethereally pure as her character demands her to be. You can't fake yoga skills, and she's got 'em. But even though, in many ways, Vera is being exploited and manipulated, we are invited to root for her, and to feel her strength. She is not a victim in the classic sense. The Skin I Live In is a mystery as much as it is a horror movie. A mystery that is satisfactorily and patiently explained, with a twist that is not played for Shyamalan gasps, and in fact unfolds at a similar pace to what's gone before, with further mini-twists off the back of it. This is skilful writing, but then again, our man Pedro is one of the living greats of modern cinema.

Oh, and it's all in Spanish. Hooray!

Over-sensitive

Hey, listen, I posted something yesterday when I was feeling a little over-sensitive about being the person who fills in for other people and the inevitable disappointment that understandably evokes in listeners or viewers to the person who is usually there. Hey, it's my lot. I was having a bad day, but that's nobody else's fault. Also, it seems I misrepresented a blameless listener to 6 Music called Gillian. Forget my over-sensitive response to it. She's written a blog about our silly spat, so I suggest you read that, although the matter is in danger of being blown out of proportion. Not by her, I might add. (I never named her, even by her Twitter name, either on the blog, or on air, as it was never meant as a personal attack.)

Gillian and I have exchanged friendlier emails since, but a) I don't want to look as if I am seeking sympathy – I never was; I was merely writing honestly about my week on 6 Music, and you can hardly accuse someone who's blog you are reading of being solipsistic: it's kind of what blog are! – and b) it doesn't really matter. There are films to review.

For full disclosure (she doesn't like me on the radio – fair enough) her blog is here. My blog post has been re-filed under "Think before you post anything that makes you look silly."

The nasty things in life

Here's a film I'd like to recommend, but I can only do so with a warning. The low-budget British horror-thriller Kill List, the follow-up to even-lower-budget crime chamber piece Down Terrace from one-to-watch Ben Wheatley, is easily the most exciting film released this week. Nothing else touches it. In fact, the Disney-produced, all-star, 15-certificate, big-budget horror remake, Fright Night 3D, shrivels to nothing next to it. Fright Night has some shocks, and some fancy effects, and some "Boo!" moments (none of which made me jump), but Kill List has a sense of dread that is maintained from one end to the other. And that's much harder to cook up.

I didn't catch Down Terrace, but I remember reading a lot about it. If it's anything like this, stylistically, it won't be everybody's cup of tea. Kill List starts out – as every other critic has spotted, but it's true – like a Mike Leigh drama, with a hellish dinner party going off the rails. This is uncomfortable enough. But when the two male characters, Jay (Neil Maskell) and Gal (Michael Smiley), are revealed to be professional contract killers, their domestic lives become all the more charged. They take on a lucrative job, which involves a list of three people they must kill, and their friendship is sorely tested by what ensues. It's effectively a thriller that turns into horror, but it's best you don't know quite how, as I didn't, and it makes the third act all the more explosive.

It's sly and witty, and at the same time, often unbearably tense and brutal. The script, written by Wheatley and his wife Amy Jump, has been enhanced by improvisation from the four main leads, and it helps to underpin the realism. Its strength lies in the believability of Jay and Gal's relationship, so when the cracks appear, we know what's at stake: years of mutual support and empathy. They understand each other, and we understand them. They are not the cartoon, superfly hitmen of Tarantino's hyperreal universe; they are two blokes getting on with their work. When they steal shampoos from a hotel, it's humorous, but also entirely credible. Of course they would. Who wouldn't?

Maskell and Smiley (with whom I used to work on Channel 4′s Naked City in the early 90s) are first rate. Though there are conventional thriller elements at play here – the jeopardy that spreads from their professional lives into their private lives – the destination is anything but predictable. Much of it is confusing, although Wheatley insists it fits together if you look at all the clues. I'll have to watch it again. And you should watch it, too. Except …

You might not enjoy it. It contains "very strong bloody violence" according to the BBFC. They're not joking. There is one scene, in particular, that almost turned my stomach. It had me trying to look away from the screen – and, naturally, being drawn to turn back and face it. This is not a film with a big special effects budget, but it's been done brilliantly and resourcefully, such that the violence is horrifically, noisily real. This is not cartoon violence. This is messy. And ugly. I was surrounded by jaded, seasoned film critics at a screening this week, and after the scene in question ended, you could hear a mass exhalation, a mix of relief and exhaustion.

So I can't recommend it, unless you have a strong stomach. I got through it. You might prefer not to watch a film that you have to get through.

I have seen the nasty bits in all the main nasty films, from the bit where the guy gets his head smashed in on the marble steps at the start of Wild At Heart to the act of self-harm in Antichrist, and in many ways, I wish I could wipe them from my mind. I can't. I sort of admire filmmakers for having the power to do this. But I have always been forewarned, and ignored the warning, so I'm warning you now, pansies, so you can ignore me.

The man who drives the snowplough

I don't have the time to write a daily blog. I managed it for a week earlier in the year, in March, but what I learned from that solipsistic experiment was that writing a daily diary that you expect others to read takes a certain amount of dedication and care. Oh, and time.

You know that old imponderable, "How does the snowplough driver get to work?" I wonder about that often. I am the snowplough driver, aren't I? What happens if I can't get to work? What happens when I get ill? Or go on holiday? Who covers for me? I spend such a lot of my time filling in for other people when they are either having a better time – on holiday – having a worse time – sick – or having a very different time that I suspect is a mixture of the two – having a baby. This is a well known fact. It defines me. I don't even mind.

I am usually the person they call at 6 Music when any or all of the aforementioned happen, and I'm there. I have not been on holiday this year, and don't expect to, as the holiday season is a very good season for me not to be on holiday during. I tried to have a holiday last year, after Edinburgh, and I ended up coming back to London twice during it, to fill in for other people. Don't sympathise. I run a small, self-employed business based upon the reorganisation of the English language. If I'm not at the end of a phone or email, I am not available for work.

I have, this week, been on 6 Music for five consecutive days. (My sixth is tomorrow.) I have been temporarily in the 10am-1pm slot, Lauren Laverne's rightful home. It's been bracing. Hers is the most complex "stranded" show on 6 Music daytime, with numerous features and a tradition of hosting live bands in the what used to be called the Hub. A half hour of Lauren's show does not go by without something to "hit": an item, or telephone conversation, a montage, a chat in the studio with a specialist of some sort, or a specially selected track with information attached. You can't go to sleep on the job, put it that way. I don't do it as often as I do Breakfast or Steve Lamacq's show, and both are a breeze in comparison.

It's been a good week. As you can see from my traditional block of Zelig photos, I met two bands, Bombay Bicycle Club and Airship, and one semi-legendary solo artist, Ryan Adams, who demanded a "closed set" and thus played and sang just for me, as I was the only other person in the kitchenette are. It was like a country-rock lapdance. I expect.

As for the Saturday show, I have been booked through September and October, but unlike other, permanent presenters, I have no guarantees of work beyond that. (I used to be a contracted presenter, but haven't been since March 2007.) This was how last year panned out in the same slot, with Richard: we were booked a month at a time; it just went on for a year. Josie is back tomorrow. People are looking forward to her return. Ironically, three other co-hosts filled in for Josie with me while she was away, each one experiencing the impermanence that I always feel, with someone else's smiling face on the website gazing out at the world while they work. Whenever Zoe Ball is away from her Radio 2 breakfast show, she is replaced by the reliable Lynn Parsons. Clearly, I feel a kinship with her.

This afternoon, I again filled in for Mark Kermode on BBC News, as he is not on holiday but at a film festival in the Shetlands. Because of these two combined bookings – Lauren and Mark, which I welcome – I couldn't practically fulfil one of my own actual weekly engagements, the Guardian Telly Addict review, so I had a week off. A holiday, if you like, although I wasn't on holiday. This means that someone at the Guardian filled in for me! Let's see, tomorrow morning. It certainly feels counterintuitive to have someone fill in for me!

Apart from a bloodshot eye and a bad foot, I haven't really been ill this year. I am grateful for that. A bloodshot eye and a bad foot don't stop me from working. I posted on Twitter last Friday that, as usual, I would be appearing on Zoe Ball's Radio 2 Breakfast show from 7am, and on 6 Music from 10am. Some wag responded: "Are you saving for a new kitchen or something." The implication, humorously meant or otherwise, was that I am working in order to make money. Well, I am. Where's the harm in this? Isn't that why we all work? As much as I enjoy most of my work, if I could do nothing all day tomorrow, I would.

During my run as Lauren, somebody posted on Twitter that they were tuning out of 6 Music to listen to Woman's Hour because I was on. Her reasoning was sound enough – and nobody's forced to listen – but my crime seemed to be that I wasn't a woman. She felt that a female presenter, rare enough, should be replaced by a female presenter. This lady didn't have to let me know she was turning off, but she felt the need to air her decision. It made me very cross. I never named and shamed her (she was quite contrite in subsequent Tweets), because I had no wish to, but my broader point was this: if you went into a shop and didn't wish to buy anything, would you a) walk out of the shop, or b) demand to see the manager so that you could tell him or her that you were walking out of the shop?

It's the first option, isn't it? But because of the ease of social media and electronic communication – and the sense of self-importance it imbues in us all – people do feel the need to let you know if they don't like you, whether to unfollow you on Twitter, or to – presumably – un-friend you on Facebook (I have never been on it), or, in the case of radio, let you know they don't want to listen to your voice.

I think you should have a bit of respect. I am, after all, just doing a job of work. I do my best. I never seek to replicate or replace the beloved regular presenter, and always make a point of saying, "Lauren's back on Monday."

I like to dig the garden, plant things and lay turf when I have no work to do. This is what a day off feels like. In employment, they call enforced suspension "gardening leave," but for me, it's not euphemistic.

When I used to have a regular weekly, on-the-page column at Radio Times, Mark Kermode would often fill in for me, and when he did, for the first time in my life, I was able to read the words, "Andrew Collins is away." And we all know what that means: don't panic, normal service will be resumed next week, you won't have to put up with this impostor for long. Spare a thought for we impostors.

IT. IS. BACK.

That was my impression of the man who shouts at the beginning of The X-Factor, as IT IS BACK, and Saturday's big launch show is reviewed on this week's Guardian Telly Addict. Also: Strike Back Project Dawn on Sky1 and Celebrity Big Brother on Channel Five, of which I have watched two whole hours so that you don't have to. Because I did have to. I shan't be making that mistake again. While making the tea for Zoe Ball at Radio 2 this morning, I saw the cover story of the Daily Star (owned by the same man who owns Big Brother, of course), which is uniquely interested in the comings and goings inside the house, and it revealed that a male model made a man who runs a paparazzi company drink some sweat.

Watch Telly Addict here.

Art, house

The BFI are reissuing Terrence Malick's Days Of Heaven on September 2 in a new digital restoration and it's going out to various arthouses in the UK and Ireland (see below for details etc.). This is great news; anything that draws people to one of my favourite films of the American 70s. It's available on DVD, in a no-frills widescreen edition that came out way back in 2001 (it doesn't even have a title screen, never mind extras), and on Blu-Ray Region 1, if you can handle such a thing, so if you haven't seen it, the recent release of Malick's beguiling fifth feature, Tree Of Life, is a good enough excuse for having a look. It really is stunning. When I first saw it, years ago, I didn't know that much about it, other than that Malick was a recluse who didn't made another film for 20 years after Days Of Heaven, so I didn't know what to expect.

I was less of a student of American painter Edward Hopper in those days, and although I recognised the paintings of Andrew Wyeth in Malick's truly gorgeous endless landscapes of orange-yellow, wind-caressed wheat (not least Wyeth's most famous work, Christina's World), it was only when I watched Days Of Heaven again yesterday that I identified Hopper's 1925 painting House By The Railroad in Sam Shepard's abode, similarly placed on the horizon. [You can compare the two images above.] Malick is as much of an artist as any painter. With two cinemtographers working with him on the film – Néstor Almendros and Haskell Wexler – he obsessively painted with natural light, shooting almost exclusively during the Magic Hour between sunset and night, which casts a supernatural, God-like pink glow across landscape, humans and farm machinery. What a pain in the arse he must have been to work for. But what riches were captured.

It's a typical 70s American movie in many ways: mumbled, episodic, esoteric, challenging, downbeat even under those heavenly red skies, lacking marquee names (Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, even Shepard, were not known in 1976 when the film was made, nor in 1978 when it was finally released), set in the past (1916) but redolent of contemporary concerns, and evidently in thrall to European cinema. And yet, for all of its recognisable stylings and tropes, Days Of Heaven sits apart from Taxi Driver, The Conversation, Nashville, Shampoo, even Heaven's Gate with its instant similarities of tone, period and the word Heaven. Though it tells a story that's actually quite traditional and even classical – family of three leave the city to seek work in the country and the couple end up in a love triangle with their employer and benefactor which leads to deception and ultimately, trouble – Malick tells it in a non-traditional way, employing a seemingly improvised narration from Linda Manz's younger sister, who meditates with a child's idealism and absolutism about heaven and hell, work and leisure, right and wrong, and through a fractured narrative not in terms of chronology (there are no flashbacks; time moves forward) but in terms of jump cuts. Scenes do not end satisfactorily; rather, they end mid-dialogue, or fade, so that we are left wondering what else will be said. It's intriguing; we pick up bits and pieces of information, but these are not spoon fed to us. We only find out it's 1916 when a newspaper headline is seen, two thirds of the way through (this same headline tells us we are in the Texas panhandle, which I don't think has been established before).

There is a climactic finale, which I won't reveal even though it's a 30-year-old film, and which seems all the more devastating for all the stillness and beauty that's gone before. This fits in with a lot of slow-moving, European-influenced American films from the 70s, which very often lead to death or destruction, from Bonnie & Clyde and Easy Rider onwards. There was something in the air. And there is certainly something in the air in Days Of Heaven.

I found two learned essays about the film, here and here. See if Days Of Heaven is coming to an arthouse near you in September here.

Gardening leave

I know it looks like I've been on holiday but I haven't. (Where would I find the time to do a thing like that?) If the healthy colouring is about anything, it's gardening. So, here's the latest Guardian Telly Addict column, which puts Sky Altantic's The Borgias [hence the warning about "scenes of a sexual nature" - only one, and it's not that sexual], BBC4′s Great Thinkers and C4′s Seven Dwarves under the critical hammer. Have a little look here.

Interestingly, in more "Please let me be on the telly" news, having recorded a review of three TV programmes in the morning, I went on to BBC News yesterday afternoon to perch on the stool and review three films, as Mark Kermode is on holiday, getting a tan in Sicily. So, for reviews of Cowboys & Aliens, The Inbetweeners Movie and The Guard, click here.

"There's nothing now until Tintin"

The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn is the first of three planned "performance capture" 3D adaptations of the Belgian comic books from Steven Spielberg. It is released in the UK on October 26, and is already generating a lot of eager fanboy anticipation in this country because of the involvement of our own Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish in the script department, and the presence of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the cast. The reason I bring it up here, two months before its release, is because of a conversation I overheard on Tuesday morning, around 10.15am.

I was in the Odeon, Leicester Square, waiting for the press screening of Cowboys & Aliens to start. Produced by Spielberg, it is very much this week's blockbuster, with a huge budget, high concept and heavyweight cast (Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford; James Bond and Indiana Jones). Its budget, just so you know, is estimated at $163 million. I'm not going to review it here, as the quality of the film is not the point. This is the point: I always sit by myself at press screenings, partly because, as a part-time film critic, I exist only on the periphery of the London film critics' circle. I drop in and out of their conclave as and when I am required. I actively avoid getting caught up conversation at the croissants table, chiefly because I will only ever have seen a fraction of the films the rest of them have seen, so feel inadequate. But I overhear them, and all they talk about is the films they have seen.

This is understandable; it's what they have in common, whether jaded, pot-bellied old veteran from one of the nationals, or eagerly panting nerd from a magazine or website. I respect their devotion to duty. If one day a newspaper invites me to be its film critic, I might find out what it's like on the inside. For now, I'm on the outside. On Tuesday morning, I overheard a group of young men having the standard conversation. In the half-light of the auditorium, I couldn't see who they were, but detected the "nerd" end of the spectrum in their very male enthusiasm for Big Films. They swapped opinions about Captain America and Super 8 and other recent Hollywood blockbusters. This was their area – either by choice or because that's what the publications they write for are focussed on. Cowboys & Aliens was right up their alley. Me? I'm nearly always disappointed by blockbusters – as indeed I was disappointed by Cowboys & Aliens. Now, I'm not saying for a minute that these young men had no critical faculties – indeed, one of them deemed Captain America to be "lacking something." They were just catching up. They made me feel antisocial.

Anyway, looking ahead at the slate, the most vociferous of the three – the one leaning over the other two from the row in front, always an alpha position in such situations – made this chilling observation:

There's nothing now until Tintin.

There's nothing now until Tintin. There's nothing. Nothing of note to get excited about at the cinema between the penultimate week of August and the last week of October. I caught his drift. He means there are no Hollywood blockbusters between now and Tintin. Nothing with a budget north of $150 million, big stars and bigger special effects. Nothing in 3D. Nothing with Spielberg's name on it. Nothing designed to appeal to the broadest international audience possible, at a split of roughly 40% domestic (ie. American) and 60% "Rest of the World" (self-explanatory), which is pretty much the ratio of a global hit these days.

In fact, just as there are eight films released in the UK this week, if you include the reissue of Kind Hearts and Coronets, there are eight films released in the UK next week, and a massive 14 the week after. It's starting to add up, isn't it? Some of them are bigger than others – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy on September 16 looks pretty big, although it's not quite Cowboys & Aliens or Captain America – but what's thrilling is that so many films are being released: documentaries, foreign-language films of every stripe, indies, British thrillers, reissues of West Side Story and Kes … No offence to Tintin, which I'm looking forward to as well, but I'd like to make this controversial statement:

There's loads until Tintin.

Let us not measure out our lives, professional or personal, in Hollywood blockbusters. That way lies crushing disappointment and sore eyes from the 3D glasses.

New hormones

Usually when a film isn't screened in advance for the press, it's because it's "not one for the critics" ie. a genre movie, or shit, or both. The Inbetweeners Movie, distributed by Entertainment – who seem to make it a badge of honour not to pander to critics – is certainly not one for the critics. But it is not shit. At least, it is the same as the E4 sitcom that spawned it, and if you like one, you'll like the other. My guess – indeed, my fervent hope – is that nobody will be rocking up to the cinema this weekend wondering what The Inbetweeners Movie might be like and taking a punt on it. If you've seen the show, you'll know. If you haven't, do not start here.

I was a little late to the party, I admit – when am I not, right, kids? – and I remember borrowing the DVD of the first series off Richard and racing through the whole thing in one sitting, all six episodes, back to back. That's how excited I was by it. I couldn't believe I'd ignored it thinking it would be a bit like a "comedy Skins". It wasn't. Skins is, I'm sure, perfect for its target audience – I've only seen two episodes, one from the first series, one from the most recent, and they seemed well written and feisty and cool, but when you identify with the parents and teachers, you're probably too old to watch it.

What's so special about The Inbetweeners is simply that it can be enjoyed equally by people around the same age as its hormonal sixth-form protagonists and those closer in age to the parents and teachers who remember what it was like to be at school. Because these boys aren't cool, no matter how hard they try, it's easier to empathise with them from 20 years' remove. (It's the same with Misfits, another show on E4 that I adore: it's about "youths" but oddballs, not the cool kids.) Anyway, having willingly watched six episodes of The Inbetweeners in a row, the idea of watching about four in a row, which is just about how long the film lasts, is a piece of cake.

To declare an interest: I know Iain Morris and Damon Beesley, who created, wrote and produced the show – and the film – but I'm glad to say I met them, professionally, and as a result socially, after I'd caught up with and fallen for their show. (To declare a further interest: their company, Bwark, paid me to script edit The Persuasionists, which they made for BBC2, and to develop a comedy of my own, which never went anywhere but at least now exists in script form, if anyone wants it. The BBC didn't. And nor did Sky.) What makes it great, and what makes the film great, is that the actors who play the four lads imbue them with a lot of heart. Yes, they're Bash Street archetypes – swot, sop, braggart, fool – but they're as complex as their two creators, upon whose schooldays and related experiences the stories are based. Simon Bird is, in particular, a skilled comic actor. And Blake Harrison, who plays Neil, brings real pathos to what might have been a one-dimensional part.

Because there were no advance screenings, I was forced – forced! – to attend the red-carpet world premiere on Tuesday. This not my usual Tuesday night out. Even though Leicester Square in the glittering West End of busy London is mainly a building site at the moment, it was nonetheless thronged with young, female fans, screaming. I guess it's because they don't find the male characters threatening. The four main lady actors from the film were in attendance too, looking all premiere-glamorous, although they have much less rewarding parts in the film – they play the "attainable" holiday-romance love interest, or at least they are initially "unattainable" but eventually become "attainable". Of the four, for my money (and I didn't pay), only Lydia Rose Bewley, playing "the Fat One" who gives as good as she gets, has anything substantial to work with. But then, it's about the Inbetweeners, isn't it? And if anything, it's the emotional core that we've come to identify over three series of observing them on the TV show that stops the film being simply laddish and smutty and sexist.

It is all of those things as well, though, just to reassure you. Although you get way more male nudity than female, so maybe the filmmakers understand their target audience better than I did. I'll tell you this much: compared to this week's big blockbuster, the Spielberg-produced, all-star, all-CGI, high-concept Cowboys & Aliens, the low-budget Inbetweeners Movie is way more honest, and way more fun.