REVIEW: Worthing's small part in surely the finest film we will see this year

No one mentions Worthing. And it’s difficult to believe that too many people are going to recognise it’s Worthing we are fleetingly looking at. But the one scene filmed in the town gives Worthing bragging rights to surely the finest film we are going to enjoy this year. And yes, I know we are still only in the first few days of January.

Camera crews were spotted in Worthing last March as the production for Empire of Light came to West Sussex. Oscar-winner Olivia Colman then filmed a scene inside the Pavilion Theatre for director Sam Mendes. And now, with the film poised to open in cinemas next Monday (January 9), Tuesday night’s Cineworld preview screening was total confirmation: we are all in for a massive treat, a rich and humane film, a deeply moving film which celebrates kindness and connection in the most beautiful way.

We are in Margate (not Worthing!) as 1980 becomes 1981. It’s odd that the beginning doesn’t at least allude to the brutal murder of John Lennon that had just taken place. After all, it is a film about social unrest and social upheaval. As the film progresses, the background is the rioting which made 1981 so grim a year – and also the rising, ugly force of racism which made it a hideous one. With all this simmering, Mendes takes us into the heart of an old-style cinema which is just about clinging on. If you remember cinema in the early 80s, you’ll love the authenticity of it all – the lush carpets, the stands which demarcate the queues, the smoke swirling in the auditorium (why on earth did we put up with that?), the ticket stubs, everything about it strikes true. But times are hard. There is a whole floor with two screens and a huge café closed off. And times are hard too for Colman’s Hilary, the assistant manager, just about clinging on as she routinely gets summoned to be sexually abused by the cinema’s ghastly manager (Colin Firth suitably awful). It’s clear she’s living with trauma. It’s unspecified what. You wonder when it will boil over.

But then something truly special happens as a new employee walks in, Micheal Ward’s Stephen, a young black guy frustrated out of a place at university and equally routinely abused – racist abuse on the streets, in his case. Two fragile creatures, they form a gentle, instinctive connection. There is plenty of symbolism as they nurse a broken-winged pigeon back to health in the cinema’s abandoned upper floor.

But then it all erupts. It’s almost a different film we watch in the second half. Racist violence smashes through the cinema’s glass doors; Hilary’s past horrors engulf her. It’s extraordinarily engrossing – and also hugely moving, especially as the cinema starts to reassert itself as a haven, a place of connection and healing. The violence is truly shocking. So too is the breakdown. But Mendes gives us a film in which kindness overcomes – a truly beautiful film about the good that we can do when we are there for each other. Are we going to get a better film than this this year? I doubt it. It really has been the most remarkable start to the year on our cinema screens: the harrowing Till and now this, two total stand-out films. Mendes clearly intended a love letter to the cinema. Very few sweeter, more moving letters have been written.