Sean McAllister, best known for his award-winning documentary A Syrian Love Story, has returned with this quietly compelling story from his home city of Hull, a movie that shows his compassionate skill in probing and winkling out the inner emotional lives of his subjects.
Last year, McAllister was put in charge of the week-long event Made in Hull – a series of projections and installation events that launched Hull’s tenure as UK City of Culture. At about the same time, McAllister befriended a bedraggled, tattooed, likable guy called Steve Arnott, who was working long, grim hours in a warehouse but dreamed of being a rapper.
In Hull’s year of culture, Arnott persuaded his employer to sponsor a “Beats Bus”: a mobile recording studio in which he toured around schools and allowed disadvantaged kids to record their own hip-hop material.
The venture, as the film shows, was a great success and Arnott was widely applauded and interviewed for his imaginative project. A kid he mentored called Blessing is particularly talented. But as the year comes to an end, Arnott realises that his own dreams may be over, that this was his moment and that it’s finished; he may have to return to the warehouse life and his money worries are worse than ever.
McAllister has great moments with all his interviewees, particularly his no-nonsense mum, who does everything but tuck his shirt in. But McAllister’s interactions with Arnott are masterly: he is kind, but unflinching in pressing him in what is going terribly wrong in his life. A Northern Soul has a lot of the spirit of Tom Courtenay in Billy Liar: a sweet, sad film with a happy ending.
