Better Things

Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins. Set in present-day rural England, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other. Production Hopkins began work on the screenplay for Better Things in 2003, and in 2004 was awarded the MEDIA New Talent Award for Best Screenplay by an under 35-year-old at the Cannes Film Festival. An intensive casting process then started in and around the West Midlands where the film was set. Hopkins built on the real-world casting techniques he had employed in his earlier short films, concentrating on ordinary people whose experiences were similar to those of his written characters, and whom he also found photographically compelling. As the film explores the issue of heroin addiction and the physical and emotional functions of drugs for the user, Hopkins cast several young people who themselves had been addicted to heroin. Shooting was conducted on location over 6 weeks in October and November 2006. Release Better Things premiered in the official selection of International Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival, May 2008. Critical reception The critical response to Better Things was positive, with the film reviewed as Film of the Month in Sight and Sound magazine, film of the week in Le Monde, chosen as one of Film Comment Selects best films of 2009, and shortlisted for The Guardian's First Film Award 2009. It was, however, also attacked in some quarters for its supposed bleakness and unrelenting tone. Many favourable critics responded to what they found to be the film's visual beauty, and an innovative cinematic reworking of the British Social Realist form. Variety compared the film in different ways to works by American photographer Nan Goldin (particularly her The Ballad of Sexual Dependency), and the British directors Lynne Ramsay and Alan Clarke.