Real (15)

Real (15)

Director: Aki Omoshaybi

Runtime: 76 minutes

Cast: Pippa Bennett-Warner, Aki Omoshaybi, Karen Bryson, Amy Manson and Amanda Lawrence

Synopsis: The love between two people who work hard to keep their romance on track while struggling to manage personal hardship. As their feelings for one another blossom, these difficult pasts resurface, threatening their relationship before it has begun.

URL: https://youtu.be/rxt4WfnU89Q

 

Actor turned writer-director Aki Omoshaybi [Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017), A Moving Image (2016), The Riot Club (2014)] has crafted an impressive debut feature in which he also stars.

In inner-city Portsmouth, an unremarkable newsagent’s sits between a courthouse and a business centre. It’s here that sparks fly between well-dressed Kyle (Aki Omoshaybi) and equally poised Jamie [Pippa Bennett-Warner – Wakefield (2016)]. Yet despite outward appearances, both are struggling to move on from hardships they would rather keep hidden. As their feelings for one another blossom, their pasts resurface, threatening to break them apart before their relationship has even begun.

Aki Omoshaybi’s deeply felt debut takes an honest look at the young couple as they struggle to manage personal hardship at the start of their blossoming relationship. Jamie demonstrates quiet tenacity as a mother determined to create a stable environment for her young son. Meanwhile, Kyle puts the need to battle his own demons on hold and is willing to beg, steal or borrow to impress his new love. The growing intimacy between the pair is captured beautifully through Omoshaybi’s naturalistic lens, offering a slice of UK urban life that, despite its challenges, manages to glow.

With sensitive and sympathetic performances from an excellent ensemble and atmospheric music composed by Luis Almau, Real is relevant and refreshing, an authentic and touching love story from a place where second chances are hard to come by. It marks Aki Omoshaybi as a talent to watch.

 

In cinemas and on demand now – see : https://www.realthefilm.co.uk/screenings

Images courtesy of : Verve Pictures