Cemetery Junction

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant will, for most, forever be associated with The Office and Extras, two extremely successful BBC comedy series which ran for two series each and, in the case of The Office, had a couple of Christmas specials to complete the narrative and character arcs. Gervais has gone on to establish himself as a critically lauded stand-up comedian who has sold out venues around the world whilst I haven't heard anything about Stephen Merchant in years. In interviews and commentaries, they make no secret of where they came from, especially Gervais who is Reading born and bred.

In Cemetery Junction which is set in 1973, Gervais plays a man, Mr Taylor, who has worked in a factory his entire life and sees absolutely nothing wrong in being born, educated, working and dying in the same town as that's the way things are. Why go to France where the food is horrible, the women smell and the toilet is a hole in the ground? His son, Freddie, lands a job selling life insurance and wants to be just like his boss, Mr Kendrick, who has moved just out of Cemetery Junction and lives in a £42,000 house with his own Rolls-Royce and private parking place. Given a chance to prove himself, Freddie is taken under the wing of Mike Ramsay (another insurance salesman) who is engaged to Mr Kendrick's daughter and Freddie's childhood sweetheart, Julie. It seems there is an knack to selling life insurance in which you have to aim the pitch at the husband but always target the wife as she is the one who will have to 'make do' when the breadwinner dies and in an early scene, Mike shows Freddie exactly how it's done.

Freddie hangs around with the same two lads he has known since he was at school, Bruce and Snork. The former is a troublemaker who likes a drink and a fight and has an extremely difficult relationship with his father who is unable to work because of a bad back and has looked after Bruce since he was a year old when his mother ran off. Snork is a bit of an idiot and the butt of many jokes as he modelled his appearance on Elton John but ended up looking like the character with a big nose from the Banana Splits, hence his nickname. Both of them are in blue-collar employment with Bruce working at the same factory as Freddie's dad and Snork (real name Paul) seeking to climb the ladder at the train station.

When Freddie bumps into Julie, who has vague aspirations of travelling the world and has spent many an hour gazing at the photos that her sister has sent from various picturesque locations around Europe, she is resigned to marrying Mike and settling down as a housewife, just like her mother. Although Freddie has his life planned out and wants to sell insurance until he is as rich and successful as Julie's father, some of the things she says seem to open his eyes and he realises there is more to life than living, working and dying in Cemetery Junction.


I've been extremely unsure about the recent output from Ricky Gervais and don't seem to find his stand-up act as funny as many of the critics and some of his peers do but still rate him as an extremely gifted comedic writer even though he seemingly earns a living playing exactly the same character in various Hollywood films. I was therefore very unsure as to what to expect from his (and Stephen Merchant's) film debut. It feels like a very personal film which was confirmed by the commentary and interview with the two men who stated that several characters were based on people they know or are related to and that the situation in which Freddie finds himself was not unlike the one facing Ricky Gervais several decades ago. Although this is a film presented primarily as a comedy, there is a great deal of drama that comes first with the comedy as a byproduct of the dramatic situations in what is, essentially, a coming-of-age drama.

Gervais and Merchant clearly have a keen eye for writing characters and are great social observers which is why The Office and and Extras feel so realistic. Freddie, Bruce and Snork may be slightly unlikely characters but they are the sort of people that you have met in real life and it doesn't seem implausible that someone would spent two weeks of his pay check up getting a tattoo on his chest (and back) that he has drawn himself (of a naked vampire leaning out an open window with him waiting outside to 'give her one') or that someone is so full of loathing for their situation that they take it out on other people when slightly drunk. It is this realism and grounded touch that makes the film work as you empathise and feel for the characters so that when a joke arrives, it feels natural and part of the characters make-up that he would say or do such a thing. There are some scenes, largely towards the end, where a single line or movement by one of the characters is utterly heartbreaking, such is the quality of the writing and your emotional involvement.


The film really works and feels like the work of a filmmaker with much more experience than Gervais and Merchant who are really limited to less than 30 half-hour TV episodes and Gervais' work as an actor in the US. It is therefore a testament to their writing and collaborative work behind the camera, with Gervais as the excitable child and Merchant as the steadying hand to put a reign on Gervais' enthusiasm. I really believed in the characters, the period and the social observation which my father, who worked in Barclays bank at the time, reassures me is entirely accurate. As the three young leads, Christian Cooke, Tom Hughes and Jack Doolan are all utterly convincing and you firmly believe that they have been mates for well over a decade. I was slightly wary that Ricky Gervais would 'hijack' the film but he is limited to an extremely low-key background role with very little screen time and so you get superb performances in slightly bigger roles by Ralph Fiennes, Emily Watson and Matthew Goode (who could play perfect 007). As befitting her role, Emily Watson seems to visibly shrink in front of the camera just as Russell Crowe did in The Insider, a film in which I maintain he delivers his career-best performance.

Anyway, I digress. Needless to say that Cemetery Junction is a remarkable and extremely watchable film with the entire cast acquitting themselves well, including some breakout performances, and extremely clever and observational writing and assured direction from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

The Disc

Extra Features
There are two audio commentaries, the first with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant and the second with actors Bruce Pearson, Christian Cooke and Jack Doolan. Although (and as expected) the one with the writers/directors is far more accomplished and revelatory of the two; the track with the actors is much better than I expected as, although they do occasionally spend more time watching the film than talking, they do provide some funny and interesting anecdotes about what it was like to make the film and work with the more established actors and crew members.

There is an interview with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant in which they talk about the genesis of the project, casting and their differing roles behind the camera with Gervais full of energy and enthusiasm, laughing over good takes and wanting to get ahead of the shooting schedule to scenes that are more energetic and fun to shoot, so Merchant is very much the 'straight man' on set, curbing his collaborators enthusiasm.

You also have a series of deleted scenes and a blooper reel which are both worth watching and, surprisingly, the blooper reel is actually one that is quite funny and not a chore to sit through. Most of this is due to Ricky Gervais and his inability to keep a straight face, stick to the script or prevent himself trying to make the other actors 'corpse'.


The Lads Look Back: The Stars Discuss Cemetery Junction is a 10 minute piece with the three leads in which they talk about more or less the same stuff as they do in the commentary from the process up to being cast, working on the film with Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais and what they think of the finished product.

Seventies Style: Production and Costume Design goes through the various aesthetic choices to recreate the early 1970s and how the various locations, costume choices and sets tell you about the characters with input from the principle members of the cast as well as those responsible for costumes and sets.

There are five different Production Featurettes which run at little more than a minute each but can be played sequentially in one 16 minute piece, going through various aspects of the production in in a rather perfunctory manner and is, like the other two, a typical EPK piece.

Rounding off the package are several trailers for other Sony Pictures Home Entertainment releases. It is perhaps well worth noting that all of these extra features are presented in 1080p high definition which is really the way they should be.


The Picture
Cemetery Junction looks extremely good with a highly detailed picture with superb colours and contrast levels. All of the time and effort that went into creating the summer of 1973 really pays dividends with the right cars, costumes and décor. In terms of recreating a period, it reminded me a great deal of An Education which is similarly convincing in its re-creation of Britain many decades ago.

Despite this being a relatively low budget British film, it looks like something with much higher production values and, although it isn't a Hollywood blockbuster, this is really something to show how good a high definition picture can look.

The Sound
Considering the dialogue dominated nature of the film, the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track may seem a little excessive but when the film opens with a scene in Freddie's bedroom followed by the three friends going out accompanied by Elton John's Saturday Night's Alright (for Fighting), the soundstage and surround speakers really do come alive and it not only sets the tempo but the period setting. Other music by T Rex, David Bowie (singing All The Young Dudes) and Led Zeppelin really adds to the superb score by Tim Atack.


Final Thoughts
I went into Cemetery Junction open-minded yet with some reservations, half expecting the film to be a Ricky Gervais vehicle with him writing, directing and starring and essaying the same characters as in The Office, Ghost Town and Night at the Museum. It was reassuring that his role is extremely marginal and allowed the younger actors to really take centre stage ably supported by Ralph Fiennes as Mr Kendrick, Emily Watson as his downtrodden wife, Matthew Goode as the incredibly slimy Mike Ramsay and prolific TV actor Francis Magee, who is utterly brilliant as Bruce's father. There are also small roles for some of the filmmakers friends such as Steve Spiers and even a little a cameo by Stephen Merchant.

This is a terrific British movie with real heart and this Blu-ray Disc does it full justice with a very good, though not spectacular, selection of extra features and superb sound and picture quality.