Sweet Sixteen movie review & film summary (2003)

Yes, you say, but this movie is set in Scotland, not America. True, and the only lesson I can learn from that is that in both countries too many young people correctly understand that society has essentially written them off.

The director of "Sweet Sixteen," Ken Loach, is political to the soles of his shoes, and his films are often about the difficulties of finding dignity as a working person. His "Bread and Roses" (2000) starred the future Oscar winner Adrien Brody as a union activist in Los Angeles, working to organize a group of non-union office cleaners and service employees. In "Sweet Sixteen," there are no jobs, thus no wages.

The movie's hero is a 15-year-old named Liam (Martin Compston) who has already been enlisted into crime by his grandfather and his mother's boyfriend. We see the three men during a visit to his mother in prison, where Liam is to smuggle drugs to her with a kiss. He refuses: "You took the rap once for that bastard." But the mother is the emotional and physical captive of her boyfriend, and goes along with his rules and brutality.

The boy is beaten by the two older men, as punishment, and his precious telescope is smashed. He runs away, finds refuge with his 17-year-old sister Chantelle (Annmarie Fulton), and begins to dream of supporting his mother when she is released from prison. He finds a house trailer on sale for 6,000 pounds, and begins raising money to buy it.

Liam and his best friend, Pinball (William Ruane), have up until now raised money by selling stolen cigarettes, but now he moves up a step, stealing a drug stash from the grandfather and the boyfriend and selling it himself. Eventually he comes to the attention of a local crimelord, who offers him employment--but with conditions, he finds out too late, that are merciless.

Some will recall Loach's great film "Kes" (1969), about a poor English boy who finds joy in training a pet kestrel--a season of self-realization, before a lifetime as a miner down in the pits. "Sweet Sixteen" has a similar character; Liam is sweet, means well, does the best he can given the values he has been raised with. He never quite understands how completely he is a captive of a system that has no role for him.

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