GFF 2013: Tower

Derek is an outsider. Not the mysterious gunslinger type who rolls into town, but a strange oddball full of ticks and frowns. Sitting somewhere between Travis Bickle and Napoleon Dynamite, he lives in the basement of his family home, funnelling weird fantasies into substandard animation projects. It's possible that his well meaning parents are the root cause of his strange behaviour, pampering, condescending and ultimately infantilising their son. Tower plays in this way as an anaemic take on the We Need to Talk About Kevin nature/nurture debate.

Throughout the film, handheld cameras float excruciatingly close to the minutiae of Derek’s life. The problem with Kazik Radwanski's feature debut is that it piles too much focus on its subject and offers the audience little respite. Indeed, the movie's feature length presumes more legs than this character study owns and we see little in the way of progress or hope. So, while approaching interesting themes, this remains a snapshot rather than a journey, a sketch of an odd piece unable to fit into the puzzle of modern life. By the end, we are happy to reject Derek as he remains coldly impenetrable. [Alan Bett]