Fated

When the heart is in the right place and things go badly wrong, it is time to grieve rather than gloat.

Fated is the debut feature film from writer/director Nicola Scott, who wants to believe it's a modern fairy tale, with romantic overtones, when it looks more like a fatal love story, with nightclub connections.

Tatty (Michael Angelis) is a middle-aged art teacher, besotted by one of his students, the fey, lissom Amy (Katrine de Candole), who has grown bored of his persistent attention and tells him it's over, whatever it was, which annoys him. "It's always about you," he snaps. "Well," she replies, disdainfully. "Who else is it going to be about?" She runs off and he chases her and she is knocked over by a car and killed.

Ten years later, Tatty has become a tramp, sleeping in the graveyard of a ruined church, beneath the statue of Amy that he had lovingly carved. On New Year's Eve, as fireworks go off all over Liverpool, the sculpture comes to life and Tatty continues where he left off, professing his love for her, while she gives him the cold shoulder.

Part of the fairy story, which Tatty seems to understand, is that when she kisses the first man she sees on "awakening," she will become immortal and he will die. Tatty hopes it will be him, because he is prepared to give up his life for her, but she looks first upon Cal (Brendan Mackey), who happens to be hiding in the churchyard, after being chased by two thugs.

Cal is young and good looking and indescribably wet. He works as a club bouncer, which is hard to believe, since he is shy, skinny and stupid. The rest of the movie is Amy chasing Cal, in order to kiss him, and Tatty rushing about looking for a dress - Amy returned in her birthday suit and is wearing Tatty's dirty mac. Craig Charles makes an appearance as a club DJ, who accompanies Amy throughout the darkest hours of the night, being funny and charming and Scousey, and there are a couple of drag queens who take pity of Tatty, as he sits in a heap in the gutter.

Sadly, the film suffers from acute innocence. Amy is filmed running in slow motion. Cal looks permanently worried. Tatty, in his long white tramp wig, becomes a pitiful embarrassment. The plot has been touched with stardust and wants desperately to be magical. Instead, it is caught between naivety and the abyss.

Resurrection should not be taken lightly. Amy doesn't have the intelligence, nor the ambition, to become a living miracle and Tatty doesn't have the dignity, or good sense, to become a disciple. That leaves Cal, who doesn't know what he wants.