You Instead (Tonight You're Mine)

UK Release: 16th September 2011

Watched on DVD: Thursday 7th March 2013

Rating: 15

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music

Runtime: 1hr 20mins

IMDb Plot Synopsis: Two feuding rock stars get handcuffed together for 24 hours at a music festival where they are both due to perform.

My Review: I picked this up randomly at a charity shop for like £1.50. I’d never heard of it, but it looked like a nice indie rom-com. And while it is that I suppose, it is a lot more ‘realistic’ than most indies. When you think of independent films you think either of hard-hitting gritty films or of artsy interesting films, but You Instead is neither. 

You can very much tell that it was done on the cheap and filmed over a short amount of time (the few days that the festival was going on). Which is necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think it adds a certain charm to it and that mad chaos and spontaneity comes through with the improvising and hand-held camera style.

After a while though you get used to the style and get into the story. It’s simplistic but it works. Two ‘rock stars’ who hate each other get handcuffed together and gradually (despite having partners) fall in love. It’s terribly cheesy to begin with, but due to the reasonably good acting it felt believable. If the two leads (Luke Treadway from Attack The Block and Natalia Tena from Harry Potter and Game of Thrones) weren’t good this film would have fallen flat immediately. The plot and writing was pretty thin at times which let it down but considering the very short amount of time they had to make this film it really is quite inspiring and the ending was suitably uplifting, leaving me with a pretty good impression overall!

Score: 7/10