THE LONELIEST BOY IN THE WORLD ***** UK 2022 Dir: Martin Owen. 90 mins
Oliver, The Loneliest Boy In The World, just wants to make friends following the death of his mother but his peers have other ideas. Rather than be carted off to a psychiatric ward, he decides he’ll have to come up with a new way to make friends and heads back to the local graveyard after dark.
Max Harwood was truly brilliant as oddball Oliver and was able to portray a broken character in a light-hearted manner to add charm and humour to this enjoyable comedy horror.
The entire ensemble were well-cast in their roles with a lot of well known faces. You could sense that they were enjoying filming this, but none more so than Ben Miller who appeared to be having the time of his life. He even confirmed this following the screening at Grimmfest.
Also adding fun and humour was Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Mitch. I was thrilled to see him break out of his typical arrogant teenager role and into something he could sink his teeth into. He portrayed a young lad with a good heart who became a great friend to Oliver.
Supporting roles Julius (Evan Ross), Margot (Ashley Benson) and Susanne (Susan Wokoma) were thoroughly well thought out and added to the storyline thanks to great writing and their brilliant acting abilities.
I am still amazed that this script was written back in the 80s and the film has been optioned many times since then. I’m so glad it has finally been made as Martin Owen has done a super job of creating this piece of art. The soundtrack is entirely well suited and adds a lot of fun to the shocking storyline. The set design was incredibly well done with lighting used to great effect. Everything was put together flawlessly.
Amongst all the fun, there are heartfelt moments that portray trauma and it’s resulting mental health issues. This is done in a delicate manner and explains a lot of the goings on.
A well thought out zombie film that I found to be quite original and a great opening feature for Grimmfest. This is one to keep an eye on!
Review by Poppy Blundell