The Sober Companion - The World's End, Or Down And Out In Welwyn Garden City
Sure it's the final part of the Cornetto trilogy but it's also among the finest movies made about addiction.
Back when I worked for Film4.com, I vividly remember attending a press preview of Hot Fuzz, desperately hoping that Edgar Wright's latest wouldn't besmirch the good name of its predecessor, 2004’s Shaun Of The Dead. As it turned out, neither me nor my colleagues had anything to worry about. Indeed, Hot Fuzz was so good a film - I think it’s actually superior to Shaun - I had no worries whatsoever when The World's End lumbered into view in 2013.
And for the first 40-odd minutes, I was every big as happy and relieved as I had been at that Fuzz preview in 2007. But then Simon Pegg's Gary King entered the toilets at The Cross Hands, and The World's End veered off into a direction I hadn't anticipated. Did I enjoy the rest of the film? Sure. Did I come away thinking Messrs Wright, Pegg and Co. had topped themselves once again? Reader, I did not.
But then my life veered off in a direction I hadn't anticipated, and ever since that time, The World's End has been rather dear to me. Because if I need to point up the behaviours that can accompany a drink problem, you’ll find them here on show in colour that’s at its very most vivid when the ‘smashy-smashy egg men’ secrete their essential fluids.
A little backstory - The World's End was always going to be quite a big deal for me as I was born and raised in Welwyn Garden City, the leafy berg where you’ll the first four (really three) pubs on Newton Haven’s Golden Mile. That some of my favourite people were making a motion picture in the place of my birth never failed to bring a smile to my face. And though I was living in South London at the time of the shoot, I received regular updates from my nephews Harry and George about their having encountered Martin Freeman in M&S.
Given all of the above, it was quite something to see the Garden City looking so damn lovely on the big screen. And whatever qualms I might have about with the plot seemed pretty small indeed besides the sheer joy of seeing my good friend Russell Giblin enjoying a pint in The Cross Hands.
Watching the film back today, The World's End feels less like a sci-fi comedy or a very expensive WGC travelogue than a full-blown horror film. Because, you see the first road the boys walk down in time to The Doors? I used to sleep in a dumpster in an alcove to the left of Martin Freeman. And those first four (really three) pubs, that I was never barred from them is a miracle on a scale far more impressive than that water-into-wine gubbins.
Yes, for far too long and on far too many occasions, alcohol was a huge problem for me. And whenever my alcoholism took hold, my behaviour - the constant lying, the misusing of funds, the willingness to undertake any messed up course of action that might result in me getting leathered - was so close to Gary King's as makes no difference.
I won't attempt a point-by-point analysis - it would be far to depressing to write let alone read, and I don't think it would do justice to the predicament I was in way back then. That I'm not there anymore is something for which I've a lot of people to thank. Had you told me when I first saw The World's End that those to whom I’d be grateful would include Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, I'd have looked at you every bit as puzzled as if you’d dared to suggest I had a drink problem.
For though the planet it depicts becomes less recognisable the longer the film goes on, The World's End is only too real when it comes to addressing alcoholism. And while the Earth isn't in thrall to blue-blooded automatons*, it is a world chockfull of Gary Kings. Do ask for help if you're worried you might be one of them. Possession of a Sisters Of Mercy tattoo isn't necessarily a symptom. That your friends would rather catch an early bus home than go drinking with you, however, most certainly is.
* Unless you know otherwise.