www.seanmcallister.com
Working for the Enemy
Mosaic Films 1997
Director : Sean McAllister
Editor : Ollie Huddleston
Working for the Enemy
United Kingdom BBC2 1997.
Nominated for Royal Television Society Award.
Sean McAllister's bleak, extraordinarily intimate film offers an insight into the lives
of 35-year-old Kevin, who hasn't worked in 18 years, and his 19-year-old girlfriend Robbie,
who earns £70 a week as a seamstress. "In an ideal world what would you like to do?" asks
the man at the employment centre charged with the thankless task of getting Kevin back to work.
"I would like to be left alone to draw," comes the surly reply. In fact Kevin is a very talented artist,
but views the notion of putting his gift into the service of others
as giving in to the "system" he despises. Robbie is not so sure, and would like a little
extra cash to spend. there are scenes of drunkenness, drug-taking and unpleasant
arguments, but at the core of the bitterness and anger that fuels their existence is quite
a touching love story.
Tim Pozzi, Daily Telegraph.
"Compelling... achieves an intimacy few documentarists dare"
Time Out
"A film gifted with one of those characters who press on an inflamed social nerve.
.. a comedy of mutual incomprehension in which the Social Band-aid kept coming unstuck"
Thomas Sutcliffe, The Independent
"Subtle, patient television bound to unsettle... it's hard to imagine a better film about
nothing happening, about someone wanting nothing to happen"
Ian Parker, The Observer
