"British comedy" is a genre that's generally identified by the "I know it when I see it" method, but a few things seem to pop up fairly consistently. The British seem to be particularly fond of clueless criminals, and they seem to have a particularly good handle on how to blend laugh-out-loud humor with serious dramatic material. Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is a charming example of both those talents at work, and the result is a film that draws you in for a good laugh and keeps you hooked to find out how the story ends.

The ball gets rolling when the hapless Dek (Rhys Ifans) proposes to his girlfriend Shirley (Shirley Henderson), and gets turned down. That's bad enough, but what's worse is that he popped the question while on a national tabloid TV show. It seems that pretty much everyone was watching... including Shirley's old boyfriend Jimmy (Robert Carlyle), who sees this as an opportunity to pick up where he left off. Needless to say, everyone's lives get into quite a tangle, as Shirley, Dek, and everyone else are forced to deal with old wounds and new feelings.

Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is interesting in that it starts out with fairly broad comedy, based primarily around the characters and their peculiarities. But as the story goes on, the characters become more and more rounded, and the film subtly shifts more into the dramatic mode. We care about what happens to these people; we may laugh with them at a funny line, or wince when they get into an embarrassing situation, but in the end we want what's best for them. In the end, director and co-writer Shane Meadows has a deft hand with the story, bringing it to a conclusion that is both natural and satisfying.

Early in the film, it's a bit confusing as to who the characters are, as we're introduced to a tangle of friends, children, and other relatives all at once, but if you pay attention it's not that hard to figure things out as the story proceeds. Most importantly, it's clear early on that the key characters are Dek, Shirley and her daughter, and Jimmy.

It's not surprising that Once Upon a Time in the Midlands was chosen as an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, as it's a very well done film overall, with a polished feel to it and solid performances from the cast.

The DVD

Video

Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is presented in its original 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio, and has been anamorphically enhanced. The picture quality is solid throughout the film, with natural-looking colors and a clean print. It's not perfectly sharp and crisp at all times, but overall it looks quite good. One minor quirk is that on a couple of occasions where a sign is displayed in the film, we get a French subtitle translating the sign... even though the subtitles are turned off. Fortunately, this only happens for the signs, not the rest of the dialogue.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack for the film is unfortunately slightly substandard. The dialogue is flat and often sounds quite muffled, which is particularly frustrating in a film whose characters have thick accents; it's difficult to follow some of the dialogue. The volume is also not well balanced; the music-only scenes are much too loud compared to the dialogue scenes, and if you've cranked up the volume to try to compensate for the muffled quality of the dialogue, you'll end up jumping for the remote control when the music blasts on in another scene.

Some online sites incorrectly list the DVD as having DTS sound; in reality, there is only a 2.0 track.

French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles are available.

Extras

A nice selection of trailers for other Sony Pictures Classics films is included here, but no other special features.

Final thoughts

Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is a nicely done comedy that provides a good supply of laughs but also takes itself seriously enough to make you care about what happens. The DVD offers a solid anamorphic widescreen transfer, though the sound is lackluster. I'll give this a solid "recommended."