Pure

Pure is about how a ten-year old boy in the West End of London (played by Harry Eden, in the best child performance I’ve seen in recent memory) deals with the heroin addiction of his mother (played by Canadian actress Molly Parker, who manages to convey both the clarity of sobriety and the fog of a drug high whenever the role requires her to do so).

I liked it, although I do think it could have been edited and directed in such a way that would have given the story a greater emotional effectiveness.

The film was released in Britain in 2002; the only reason the film got released on DVD in the United States here now was because Keira Knightley (who is misleadingly put on the cover art, but thankfully not on the DVD art) has a supporting role as a pregnant waitress, also a junkie, who befriends the boy.

She doesn’t have more than maybe 15 minutes screen time, if that, but it is probably her second best role, the first being “Jackie” in The Jacket, to which there is there is a slight similarity here. It makes me think that perhaps she should aim for roles which require less affability and more bitchiness (although not the psuedo-bitchiness of Domino).

She is 17 years old here (and you can see the acne in certain scenes!), befriending a 10 year old, and I found the friendship interesting because the boy is obviously keen on her in the way that boys sometimes are enamored of a young woman several years older. That happened to me on occasion as a boy, but this is maybe the first time I can recall seeing a film capture that feeling; and since I am keen on Keira as well, so I can understand what the boy feels! (She may be playing a crackhead here, but there are still moments when she’s downright adorable looking.)