Honeytrap

A teenage girl who just wants to fit in, soon finds herself running with the wrong crowd in this cautionary drama based on a tragic real-life crime committed in Brixton, in 2008. Jessica Sula stars as naive 15-year-old Layla who has been brought up by grandparents in Trinidad, and soon faces a steep learning curve when she moves to stay with her estranged mum (Danielle Vitalis) in streetwise South London. It's familiar rites-of-passage fare, but writer/director Rebecca Johnson's insightful treatment looks at the story from a distinctive feminine perspective, showing how the innocent yet calculating Layla learns to make new friends by knowing when to deliver plenty of attitude and when to play up to submissive female clichés. Unfortunately, the men in her life - a bad-boy rapper (Lucien Laviscount) and nice-guy best friend (Ntonga Mwanza) who contend for her affections - aren't nearly as well-drawn, which rather hinders the potency of the drama overall. Sula though, alternating between sassy bravado and anxious vulnerability, is absolutely terrific.