A pair of petty criminals stand outside a high-end Hoxton cafe, peering through the glass at the macchiato drinkers. "They ain't like you and me, bruv," grumbles chippy Dave (Frederick Schmidt) to his friend Tariq (Aymen Hamdouchi). He bangs on the glass, demanding to be noticed. "Hey!" he yells. "We're here too, yeah?"
The Cannes film festival loves august British directors like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach and is happy to grace them with Palme d'Or nominations. But Snow in Paradise, the feature debut of jobbing editor Andrew Hulme, positively revels in its illegitimate status (bypassed by UK funders; cobbled together on French and German money). Flawed but heartfelt, it spins a tale of social outcasts, of men who are increasingly at odds with a gentrified London; disgusted by the Tarquins and Jemimas who have colonised their neighbourhood and by the local boozers that have now gone organic. The film gatecrashes the festival in the Un Certain Regard sidebar.
Hulme's drama is based on the life of Martin Askew, an east end hoodlum who later converted to Islam. Askew co-wrote the script and takes a supporting role as "Uncle Jimmy", who treats Dave as his errand boy. Disaster strikes and Tariq goes missing and a guilt-wracked Dave blunders into the mosque, in search of his friend or some solace; even he can't say for sure. He is torn between his vicious Uncle Jimmy and his smirking Uncle Mickey. Just possibly, however, there is a third way that he can go.
The plot's a little shonky, the dialogue congeals and the film frequently falls prey to the sort of trippy, attention-seeking flourishes that Hulme would presumably have cut if he were editing any other movie than his own. All the same, there's something here. Snow in Paradise connects most effectively when it maintains a hard, straight trajectory. It also clears space for a brace of potent performances from newcomer Schmidt as the volatile hero and David Spinx as obsequious Uncle Mickey, who possesses a yellow smile and a cold blue stare. The old rogue sits in the greasy spoon, gazing at a ghastly reproduction that shows a fairytale cottage in an idyllic mountain meadow. "Ah, the old days, Dave," he says with a sigh. Uncle Mickey can remember when Old Street roundabout was fields.
I would have liked to have seen Hulme give more attention to Dave's religious conversion and a little less to the stock gangster showboating, if only because what he shows is so intriguing. We have the sense that Dave runs to Allah more out of anguish than interest - because he is broken and desperate and has nowhere left to turn. In this respect, the mosque (or the church) is not dissimilar to Robert Frost's marvellously jaded description of home. It's the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
