I KNOW YOU KNOW
 
UK, 2008, 82 minutes, Colour.
Robert Carlyle, Aaron Fuller, David Bradley, Karl Johnson.
Directed by Justin Kerrigan.

 An interesting film but one which many people may find alienates them.  It begins one way and ends in quite, quite another.
 
Part of the difficulty may be that the writer-director, Justin Kerrigan (Human Traffic), has dedicated this film to his father.  And, it seems, the film is something of a heart-felt portrait of his father showing the rapport between a son and a very strange and disturbed father.
 
It starts breezily with Charlie (Robert Carlyle giving quite a striking performance) and his son Jamie (Aaron Fuller) returning from a trip.  School starts for Jamie, with some loneliness and bullying, and his father wants him to stay with his uncle and aunt.  In the meantime, it seems that Charlie has a special and secret commission and suspects a new television satellite company as being behind the problems.  It is 1989.
 
From then on, the film becomes quite complicated, Jamie puzzled and asking lots of questions, his father acting strangely and becoming more and more obsessed with his mission and the enemy.
 
After a while, we realise what is happening and share Jamie's concern and love for his father and the dangers he is getting into.
 
The setting is Wales.  Much of the action takes place in ordinary circumstances.  But, the agent story heightens the melodramatic aspects until a sadly ironic postscript voiced by the director himself with another dedication of the film to his deceased father.

1.            The title?  Charlie and his saying it into the mirror, talking to whom?  The ironies of the title? 

2.            The Welsh setting, Cardiff and the outskirts, the flat, the city, the bar, police and government offices?  A sense of realism?  The musical score? 

3.            A film about a father and son, the bonds between them?  The son and his age, growing up?  The father and his descent into madness?  The boy, facing reality, responsibility?  The film based on the director’s own experiences with his father? 

4.            The introduction to Charlie, looking in the mirror, talking to the mirror, Jamie watching him?  His trip with Jamie and their arriving at the airport, meeting Mr Fisher?  Charlie and his age, his work as a travel agent?  His being an agent, a spy?  His sense of mission?  Preoccupied, secrecy?  His taking Jamie to Ernie and Lily?  The television and the satellite company?  His seeing the trucks?  Assuming that they were the enemy?  His tracking them?  His setting up the flat, dingy, the posters?  Hiding out?  The contacts with Mr Fisher?  The visits, talking in private, Jamie listening in?  Audience reaction to this – believing that Charlie was an agent, or not? 

5.            Jamie, his not wanting to stay with Ernie and Lily because of the television, treating him like a child?  Return to his father?  His father’s upset because of the mission?  Taking him away?  Overhearing his father talking with Mr Fisher?  Going to school, not making any friends, Dean and his gang, the bullying?  His friendship with the young boy?  Together?  Dean and the punch?  Charlie’s reaction?  Training him with the boxing?  Telling him what to say to Dean, Jamie doing it and being successful?  The children watching the fight?  Dean’s friends leaving him?

6.            Ernie and Lily, their concern, worrying about Charlie?  Charlie and his suspicions of Ernie? 

7.            Mr Fisher, orders?  Passing the man at the bus stop, Jack and his greeting every day?

8.            Charlie, becoming more paranoid, the gun, the club, nobody turning up, his drinking?  Jamie and his concern? 

9.            Jamie, discussions with Ernie, going to see Mr Fisher, finding out the truth about his father, the travel agency going bust, the satellite company taking over?  His father’s mental collapse? 

10.         Jamie, consoling his father?  Playing along with him, going to the police station, getting the police to come, Charlie being taken away? 

11.         Jamie talking with Charlie, Charlie and his knowing there was something wrong with him, knowing that he would have to go into an institution?  His farewell to his son? 

12.         The pathos of the relationship between father and son?  The emotional impact of Robert Carlyle’s performance?  The credibility of the whole story – and its basis in reality?