Film Reviews by IF

This is such a bold, compelling, gut-crunching and moving independent English film, which is even more exciting given that it's from a female writer and director. 'Pin Cushion' is Deborah Haywood eye-catching first feature length outing and bodes extremely well for the future.

Not surprisingly, a film about bullying (of both children and adults), proves to be a tough watch, and it certainly does make for some disturbing and uncomfortable viewing, increasingly so as the story develops, though there are moments of black comedy that help lighten the load just a little.

There are terrific performances from the whole cast, but in particular the mother and daughter double act provided by Joanna Scanlan and Lily Newmark stands out, whilst the art direction, costume design and soundtrack are all terrific. There are touches of 'Carrie' and 'Heavenly Creatures' within the plot and the tone of the film, but Haywood has drawn most from her own experiences, and has created an impressive and unique vision in the process.

I have some sympathy with the filmmakers given the obviously low budget, and there's no doubt that there are some interesting ideas here (though very few of them are new, in philosophy, science fiction or film) but, even when taking all that into account, this a poor effort. It's very badly scripted, as it moves between technobabble and totally unrealistic human interaction, the characterisation is virtually non-existent, and these elements in combination make it very difficult for the actors to appear remotely convincing.

There are hints of much better films here that you suspect the filmmakers had seen and wanted to emulate - 'Memento', 'The Prestige', 'The Fly' and 'Timecrimes' all spring to mind, but those films were well-paced, well-written and took one really clever idea and constructed a believable film around that idea. By comparison 'Anti Matter' has too many ideas (& characters & story threads), none of them that great or original, and it mixes them up into an unconvincing end product.

If you like the films I mention above then personally I would suggest you watch them again rather than waste 109 minutes on this exhausting and frustrating but ultimately uninspiring effort.