Over the top

The Kid is based on a true story and the book by Kevin Lewis, who had an horrific childhood taking in abuse, violence, poverty, starvation and abandonment by the social services. These books are called ‘misery memoirs’ and sell by the bucketload so I’ve even had a go myself. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: hang on, you had a thoroughly uneventful — nay, happy — middle-class upbringing in the Hampstead Garden Suburb, which doesn’t sound like an especially promising basis for a true story of cruelty, neglect, survival against the odds and the indomitable nature of the human spirit, but you would be wrong. Here is a taster: ‘I grew up in a house where no one was safe, particularly from music lessons (piano, mostly). I was one of four children, and we would all beg for the lessons to stop. “Stop, stop,” we would all cry. “This is middle-class abuse of the highest order and not one of us has any talent whatsoever…”’ It has already been described by The Bookseller as ‘just like Angela’s Ashes, but without the harrowing bits, or even the interesting bits’. I believe Julia Roberts wants to play me in the movie, but we’ll see. I think I’d prefer Penelope Cruz.

So, anyway, this is what we are dealing with here (she says, tiredly) and these books are all very well, I suppose, and mine is terrific — wait until you get to the bit where my mother wouldn’t allow me to watch Blue Peter until I’d tidied my room; the bitch! — but, as films, the material must be handled subtly and deftly and not defeat itself by going way over the top, as this so often does. It is true, but doesn’t seem so, whereas a film like Kes, say, wasn’t, but does.