My English Cousin

You only need to consider some of the intertitles in Karim Sayad's documentary - The Shit Life Syndrome, The World Is Divided Into Two Parts and Life Is Confusing At This Point - to get a feel for the vibe of his film, which follows his cousin Fahed as he grapples with life in the Lincolnshire port town of Grimbsy while imagining greener grass back in his Algerian birthplace.

When the documentary begins, he's been in the UK for 17 years, initially on the street but quickly establishing himself via a strong work ethic, which we can see in action as he begins his day - split between factory and kebab shop - at 5.30am and ends it at another ungodly hour. He has a British wife (although this detail is muddied throughout the film) - glimpsed only briefly - but he's already considering leaving her to return to his homeland. This is, on the surface of it a consideration of what it means to be an "exile", as we see that having a foot both in Algeria and the UK leaves Fahed floating somewhere between the two, unable to settle. More fundamentally, however, this is a study of working-class loneliness and the way that anyone - no matter where they are from or where they want to go - can become trapped in little more than the daily grind.

Ironies abound, from the inspirational quotes on the wall of the home he originally shares with his wife, declaring "life", "laugh" or "better", "stronger", to the jauntiness of the alarm ringtone on his phone that it seems Fahed sometimes doesn't even have the energy to switch off. Although, focused on Fahed first and foremost, Sayad captures the life of what might be considered the itinerant work diaspora of Britain as well. Once he leaves his marriage, we see him sharing a house with a gaggle of other, apparently single, blokes from all points north and south, who mark their days with little other than working and drinking - as one of them puts it: "Men don't go in the fridge for food, they go in for beer".

As Fahed travels back to Algeria, with a view to settling down and finding a second bride, he seems to swap doing everything for, essentially, doing nothing, as his aunt - a colourful presence and voice of reason - tries to help him. "It looks like you're marrying your brother," she tells him, as she tries to dissuade him from an unsuitable match. Sayad's camera watches implacably, showing how Fahed's dilemma is as much about where he is mentally as where he is physically - recording his life in snapshots that emphasise the untethered grind of it, although this sometimes means the film lacks background detail. If there are answers, we're left seeking them just as much as Fahed.