Pure (2005)
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Harry Eden, Keira Knightley, Molly Parker, David Wenham, Kate Ashfield
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
Eden, who holds the film together by his winning presence and doughty performance, effectively conveys the effect of severe challenges that no child should ever have to face.
Although there is nothing really new here, an honest sense of humanity wins out.
It is so well-acted that it deserves admiration, but some of its pedestrian plot elements drag it down toward mediocrity.
There are latchkey kids, and then there's Paul, the 10-year-old hero (there's no other word for it) of Gillies MacKinnon's powerful drama Pure.
Parker and Harry Eden, the boy who plays her precocious-by-necessity son, elevate Pure from a tedious cautionary tale to a wrenching drama.
You kinda wish something, anything good would happen to the kid. Maybe someone could get him some ice cream.
PURE offers a fascinating contrast between acting talent (Molly Parker) and star quality (Kiera Knightley).
In an award-worthy performance, [Eden] possesses the screen with ease and steals the entire film.
Pure is made in the fine old miserabilist tradition of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, but MacKinnon has a rare way with children and a poetic eye for even the drabbest inner-city habitats.
Director Gillies MacKinnon (Hideous Kinky) forges a very wrenching and believable bond between Parker and Eden.
Though compellingly acted, Pure's spit and polished kitchen-sink realism exudes a disconcertingly cheery affection for the lives of its characters.


Top Critic