Flashbacks of a Fool

A film starring Daniel Craig and Harry Eden as the older and younger Joe Scot, and featuring the tremendous Miriam Karlin in a wonderful cameo role. Daniel Craig (in a non-Bond role) plays an actor in the way down - and quite dramatically so. After a drug and sex fuelled night at his beachside house in California Joe receives a phone call to say his childhood friend 'boots' has died, and this allows the film to return to the 1970s and a seemingly idyllic period in Joe's life which gradually begins to illuminate the current man. Harry Eden is so good at depicting the yearnings of adolescence, and relationships with fellow teenage boys. I'm guessing the young Joe is 15/16 and it is the summer holidays, and they are in a community by the sea. Joe is surrounded by girls & women - and spends most of his time thinking about them, setting his sights on Ruth. However, neighbour Evelyn (who is a mother of a daughter close to Joe's sister's age), sets out to seduce him - although Joe is not particularly reluctant. During one of these liaisons a tragedy befalls Evelyn's daughter and Joe runs away. Returning for the funeral of 'boots' (who went on to marry Ruth and turns out to be the perfect husband and father) Joe realises that although he is the wealthy world famous performer who was clearly the star of his childhood friends in every endeavour, perhaps he missed out on other life afirming experiences. A better than I expected 8/10