You may read about Nick Whitfield as being the “British Charlie Kauffman”, which is not only a gross misjudgement and overstatement, but perhaps a sad reflection of the stale perception of British filmmaking. Why as a rule are we so formulaic and stern, in terms of narration, that all it takes is for someone to approach a British film from an American perspective and he is heralded the next Charlie Kauffman - who is not simply a quirky American filmmaker, but one of the most visionary and important figures in cinema of our generation. So, while the director may have watched 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind' endlessly (his own admission during a Q&A I attended) he has not managed to emulate it in anyway.
'Skeletons' is far from a bad film - it is original, witty and at times engrossingly emotive - but it lacks certain elements that really separate it from the pack. The humour is too formulaically ‘quirky’, often feeling contrived, and the relationship between the two protagonists is at times irksome. They are salesmen traveling from house to house extracting skeletons from people’s closets by placing themselves in their past scenarios, uncovering love rats and lost love ones along the way. Existentialism runs through the film's core, and the premise raises interesting issues and bold moves, cinematically. Jason Issacs, as the duo’s (Will Adamsdale, Andrew Buckley) boss is simply superb and steals the show in a heartbeat, equally terrifying and engrossing. His character reads something like Daniel Day Lewis’ Bill the butcher, in the form of an angry farmer - however bewildering, he is a delight to behold. The film struggles to balance comedy with drama in some respects, and seems to use comedy as a means to break up the flow of things when they get a little too heavy - instead of treating it with a sense of fluidity it feels like someone is hitting a ‘funny dialogue’ button every thirty minutes or so. However, 'Skeletons' is a refreshing piece of British cinema, and one can only hope the adventurous take on narrative is one that we see more often.