The Goob

Despite the wide-open scenery, the film exerts a forceful, pressure-cooker sense of claustrophobic inevitability.

The Goob is less about linear narrative than presenting a fragmentary drift of events and a spirit of place that's deeply claustrophobic.

Doesn't quite live up to its early promise, but still a solid debut from first-time British writer/director.

Some typical Britfilm flourishes are present and correct - moody shots of the Goob whipping through the long grass, brandishing a stick - but the Norfolk setting, its sincere leads and an affecting score keep things a touch above the usual.

The writer-director Guy Myhill brings an engaging mix of abrasiveness and lyricism to a film that seems at times like a British equivalent to David Gordon Green's early films.

The setting for Guy Myhill's terrific coming-of-age drama The Goob is the wind-blasted flatland of rural Norfolk, but there's a reckless, lawless quality to this land and its community that evokes the backwoods of America's deep south.

A really intelligent essay in classic Brit social realism, well-acted and beautifully photographed by cinematographer Simon Tindall.

There is a skittishness to Guy Myhill's debut that initially feels impressionistic but ultimately seems like carelessness as his narrative weaves unsteadily through its central character's coming of age, unsure where to place its emphasis.

Myhill's debut has admirable artistic ambition and a pungent sense of place and longing.

At the centre of it all, lanky newcomer Walpole gives a remarkable, sympathetic performance as a boy on the cusp of manhood, struggling with the pressures of a small-town environment and a half-formed desire for something more.

A wordless montage of the Goob's night-long first date with one of the migrant pickers who harvest the crops is transcendent.

Both alluring and achingly desolate ... It's hard to say what Myhill's goal for film is, apart placing Norfolk centre stage.