Sightseers Review

• 21st Mar 2013

Let me start by saying that Sightseers is nothing like what I thought it would be; far from a British take on the ghastly Robin Williams flop RV (and I say that with no knowledge of the film other than its poster…), Sightseers follows Anorak couple Chris and Tina on their jaunty caravan holiday around the glorious British Countryside. They visit Crich Tramway Museum, Keswick Pencil Museum (or at least Tina does) and descend rapidly into a pattern of all-but indiscriminate mass murdering [standard Anorak behaviour in the right conditions, I suppose].  It’s a menacingly funny film; there are jokes of sorts but they’re hardly thrown in to relieve the macabre, more to draw out the disbelief that two people so apparently dim as Chris and Tina are capable of embarking on such a successful killing spree.

Speaking of killing sprees, director Ben Wheatley’s last flick was the suitably named Kill List, a film which left many people pale and sweaty, and I’m assured that Sightseers is very much Wheatley’s lighter take on a subject which so clearly holds his attention so effectively.  He is incredibly clever about playing with the audience on this one though: the set up reveals Tina to be a thirty-something, living at home wet rag, mollycoddled by a possessive, manipulative and probably very lonely mother, who isn’t best pleased when Tina’s new boyfriend Chris shows up to whisk her daughter away in his shiny old caravan. “I don’t like you” she spits at him as they prepare to drive off, and it would seem her concern is justified.

I won’t spoil the nature of the killings, because that too is Wheatley gold, so unexpected a turn for what starts out almost as a bog-standard indie-road-trip-self-discovery-(thankfully no mention of Barbara Streisand..)comedy. Just take my word that once Chris and Tina pass the point of no return, they take to heart fully the phrase “in for a penny…” with vociferousness and passion. Lots of passion.

Sightseers won’t be for everyone, and I think some prior experience of the ways of the rambler is essential for maximum viewing pleasure, but I should definitely give it a watch if I were you. If nothing else, it’s the perfect stimulus to give one finger to Jeremy Clarkson and his absurd distain for caravan enthusiasts, and any reason to spurn Clarkson has got to be worth 88 minutes of your life, right?

Dani Singer