We’re huge fans of Joe Cole here at Movies on Weekends. The young performed, famed for his role in Peaky Blinders, has been carving a spectacular portfolio for himself since a young age. Starring in gritty indie movies such as Pressure, Green Room, and The Falling, Cole has been unabashed in the projects he chooses. With more and more people are discovering his work including that brilliant BAFTA-winning episode of Black Mirror “Hang the DJ” and veteran drama Thank You For Your Service, we’re happy that he is getting the acclaim he utterly deserves.
To celebrate his towering performance in the brutal movie A Prayer Before Dawn, which is out Friday, I’d like to take you back to his performance in BAFTA nominated short film Slap, where he first piqued our interests as a performer to watch.
Slap is a dark comedy that looks at a young transvestite (or a transgender young woman, it is unclear). Deftly handling a rough and tough area of Northern England, the film is a conflict of personalities. Combining the hefty boxing masculinity of Connor alongside the delicacy of feeling alive through make-up and dresses, the film is a battle of heart and brawn.
What Slap does is excavate two different spirits of the same person, expectations verses what they are really like. As he reveals his secret, unwillingly to his best mate, the film takes a different shift. It acutely portrays the aspects of staying true to yourself and that pit of encouragement when you have someone’s support; in this way, the conversation in the bedroom is astonishingly well done. And then it unravels in your stomach. The weight of the shitty group of people around him (and the mirror towards today’s boorish society) sends you on constant barrel rolls of feelings.
Yet it is really the acting of a young Cole that powers this forward. There’s just something enigmatic about the way he carries himself here. Whether he is performing masculinity or femininity, Cole inhibits the space.
The performance literally slaps you around the face with the unnerving clash of worlds that boils inside of him. It is a testament to the raw and undeniable energy Cole possesses that will carry him to more intense, impressive, and incredible films in the future.
Watch Joe Cole in the phenomenal A Prayer Before Dawn
Out Friday 20th!
