''Filth'' is a 2013

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combin ...

written and directed by Jon S. Baird, based on

Irvine Welsh Irvine Welsh (born 27 September 1958) is a Scottish novelist, playwright and short story writer. His 1993 novel '' Trainspotting'' was made into a film of the same name. He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short fil ...

's 1998 novel '' Filth''. The film was released on 27 September 2013 in Scotland, 4 October 2013 elsewhere in the United Kingdom and in Ireland, and on 30 May 2014 in the United States. It stars

James McAvoy James McAvoy (; born 21 April 1979) is a Scottish actor. He made his acting debut as a teen in '' The Near Room'' (1995) and appeared mostly on television until 2003, when his feature film career began. His notable television work includes ...

, Jamie Bell, and

Jim Broadbent James Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English actor. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the feature film '' Iris'' (2001), as well as winning a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe for ...

Plot

Detective Sergeant Sergeant ( abbreviated to Sgt. and capitalized when used as a named person's title) is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and other ...

Bruce Robertson, a scheming, manipulative, misanthropic bully, spends his free time indulging in drugs, alcohol, abusive sexual relationships, and "the games" — his euphemism for vindictive plots he hatches to cause trouble for people he dislikes, including many of his colleagues in the

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

police force. Bruce also delights in bullying and taking advantage of his mild-mannered friend Clifford Blades, a member of Bruce's

masonic Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

lodge, whose wife, Bunty, is the target of his repeated obscene phone calls. He only shows genuine warmth to Mary and her young son, the widowed wife and child of a man whom he tries and fails to resuscitate after he suffers a heart attack in the street. As the story begins, Bruce's main goal is to gain a promotion to become

Detective Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...

, the path to which appears to open when he is assigned to oversee the investigation into the murder of a Japanese exchange student. However, Bruce slowly loses his grip on reality as he works the case and has more and more vivid hallucinations. It is ultimately revealed through dream-like exchanges with Dr. Rossi, Bruce's psychiatrist, that he is on medication for

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevat ...

and has repressed immense feelings of guilt over a childhood accident that led to the death of his younger brother. We learn his wife Carole has left him and is denying him access to his daughter Stacey. These domestic issues sparked his desperate bid for promotion, played a part in his unusual displays of kindness toward Mary and her son, and have also led him to start cross-dressing as his wife when off duty in order to "keep her close" to him. While wandering the streets on such an occasion, Bruce is kidnapped by a street gang led by the thuggish Gorman — who are responsible for the murder — and badly beaten. However, he manages to kill Gorman by throwing him through a window and is found by his colleagues. Bruce not only misses out on the promotion as a result of the events, but is in fact demoted to

Constable A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...

and is reassigned to uniform, while rookie Ray Lennox is promoted to Detective Inspector. Afterwards, Blades receives a tape of Bruce apologising. Bruce then prepares to commit suicide by hanging, but is interrupted at the last moment by Mary and her son knocking at his front door. He then breaks the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

and addresses the audience repeating his catchphrase — "same rules apply" — and laughs as the chair slips from under him.

Cast

Production

Welsh's novel was published in 1998, but over the following years the project was passed between producers and acquired a reputation of being "un-filmable".

Music

Track listing

Other notable pieces include * ''Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio'' * ''"Libiamo Ne'lieti Calici (Brindisi)'' * ''Sandstorm'' * '' Mr. Vain'' * Theme from ''Elvira Madigan'' * ''Les noces de Figaro, K. 492: Ouverture'' * ''

La donna è mobile "" (; "Woman is fickle") is the Duke of Mantua's canzone from the beginning of act 3 of Giuseppe Verdi's opera ''Rigoletto'' (1851). The canzone is famous as a showcase for tenors. Raffaele Mirate's performance of the bravura aria at the oper ...

Reception

Box office

The film earned £250,000 in the box office revenue during its opening weekend in Scotland, reaching number one in the charts. It grossed £842,167 ($1.4m) in the following weekend, when it went on general release throughout the United Kingdom. The film ultimately ended up grossing $9.1 million worldwide.

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film has an approval rating of 66% based on 97 reviews and an average rating of 6.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Warped, grimy and enthusiastically unpleasant, ''Filth'' lives up to its title splendidly." The film also has a score of 56 out of 100 on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

based on 24 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Filth 2013 black comedy films 2010s Christmas comedy-drama films 2010s crime comedy-drama films 2013 independent films 2013 films British black comedy films British Christmas comedy-drama films British crime comedy-drama films British independent films Cross-dressing in film English-language Scottish films English-language German films English-language Belgian films English-language Swedish films Films about bipolar disorder Films about drugs Films based on British novels Films directed by Jon S. Baird Films produced by Trudie Styler Films scored by Clint Mansell Films set in Edinburgh Films shot in Edinburgh Icon Productions films Lionsgate films Scottish comedy films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films