Richard Billingham's "Ray & Liz" is worthy to take its place next to the early films of both Terence Davies and Bill Douglas and like their films is largely autobiographical. It is a picture of Billingham's abusive, alcoholic family, his parents, Ray and Liz, and his extended family and naturally it's depressing but also not without a grim humour and as befits someone who has made his name as a photographer is full of images that might best be described as depressingly beautiful.
There is an old saying, write about what you know and in terms of world cinema it's those films that home in to a specific aspect of their country's national identity that work best. Britain has always been a class-conscious nation and that's probably why those films that dealt honesty with working class life and made in the early sixties, (the Kitchen Sink movies), that have remained freshest in the memory. It was something that Davies and Douglas knew only too well and which Billingham has now adopted.
This is a film in which every tiny detail is perfectly realised; the cheap artificial flowers, ornaments and paintings that Liz uses to brighten a home where the wallpaper is peeling off the walls and dogs pee on newspapers on the floor. Forget about something like "The Favourite", this is the best designed film of the year. It's also superbly played by its totally unknown cast. Ella Smith is particularly good as the neglectful Liz, someone perhaps more deserving of our pity than our scorn. Ray and Liz may be products of their society but Billingham, unlike Ken Loach, isn't really too concerned with the wider social picture but with the personal. This is his home movie and it's a deeply felt one.
