SULPHUR AND WHITE (2020) FILM REVIEW

***

15, 120 Mins

The sexy, sensitive and sentimental don't sychronize, but this is still an uncompromising portrait of abuse.

This drama from Director Julian Jarrold based on the life of NSPCC camaigner and abuse survivor David Tait (Mark Stanley) struggles to wed thoughtful commentary on sexual abuse with yuppie hedonism and schmaltzy romance, but is at its best in its early scenes with David growing up as a child against the backdrop of Apartheid Era South Africa.

There's Spielbergian flourishes in the sunshine-dappled bond between the young boy (brilliantly played by Hugo Stone) and his mother (Anna Friel). Of course such sentimentality is in stark contrast with the unthinkable darkness of David's bitter relationship with his father who bullies and beats him. Moreover when David is sent to work a part-time job at a petrol station where he finds himself abused by paedophile ring of local men. Watch out for a truly painful scene where the 10 year old lad bites his lip to the point of bleeding as a coping mechanism to physically express his inner trauma.

​When attention shifts to David's adult life as a suited and booted, Patrick Bateman-esque London financial trader, I automatically felt less invested in the excess of sex, drugs and cash. The film also overindulges in touchiness when it comes to David's escapism through the feelings of a colleague (Emily Beecham). Nothing in this love affair ever matches the unbreakable delicacy of the movie's mother-son interactions.
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While the marriage of the sexy, sensitive and sentimental doesn't entirely synchronise, 'Sulphur and White' still deserves plaudits for its uncompromising depiction of the emotional and psychological toll of abuse and for stressing the importance of familial love in overcoming it.