La herida luminosa

A young lad (Sam Zeitlin) is down at heart, neglecting his sausage and chips and worrying his mum (Julia Fossi) as he wants to remain indoors whilst a typically British summertime is making it’s presence felt against the windows of their home. Desperate to cheer him up, she presents him with his very own golden ticket. A trip to Majorca. Off he goes and is quickly enlivened simply by the power of the sun. The thing is, as well as invigorating this young man, it also appears to affect him mentally as we build to a denouement that contrasts what he has at home with what he has found for this brief period away and in quite a thought provoking fashion. Is that an expression or manifestation of depression? Is that just an ill-considered fantasy brought on by his new bright environment? The scene at the very end rather summed up a few elements about the difficulties of parenthood too, and though there isn’t anywhere near enough meat on the bones to create a substantial story here, the poetic nature of the largely out-of-vision dialogue does evoke something intangible about our need for brightness in our lives - regardless of whether it comes from 93 million miles away or not.