Tides

It's always safer to look back than forwards, as four friends discover during a short barge holiday in Tupaq Felber's debut feature. Keen to help actor buddy Jon (Jon Foster) through a crisis, his pals (Jamie Zubairi, Robyn Isaac, Simon Meacock) also regard a chug along a southern English canal as an opportunity to escape their own problems for a few days. However, in the course of getting drunk and stoned, they are forced to face up to the fact their lives haven't necessarily gone according to plan and that their salad days are already behind them. It's true to say that an element of actorly self-indulgence informs some of the improvised exchanges. Yet Tides works better as a character study than a drama, as the banterish sleights have a ring of authenticity that carries over into Paul O'Callaghan's monochrome imagery, as he uses the cramped interiors and placid waterways to suggest that life is gradually becoming greyer.