Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy) is a terrible man. He’s addicted to drugs, compulsive about sex, rude, lewd, and he bullies his friends and co-workers and plays pranks on them that are so extreme that it would be no stretch to categorize them as being abuse. He’s also a Detective on the Edinburgh police force. Also he’s crazy. Or, at least, he’s increasingly plagued by disturbing hallucinations. I guess the word “crazy” is relative. Filth is his story; a character study that plays out over the course of his investigation of the murder of a young Japanese student by a crew of equally young street hoods. It’s also an adaptation of an Irvine Welsh (“Trainspotting") novel, so you probably already have a sense of the black humor and affection for the dregs of society that exists at its core.
Of course, Filth is also a movie that’s been made by a relative newcomer in Jon S. Baird, and not by a directing prodigy like Danny Boyle, so to go into it expecting to see the second coming of Trainspotting isn’t going to do anyone any service. What Baird comes up with isn’t without its own style—as a matter of fact, he’s able to offer up some memorably twisted images as Robertson’s dementia increases—but the reason to watch Filth isn’t the style or craft inherent in the filmmaking, or even the personality that comes from Welsh’s source material—it’s the work that McAvoy is able to do as the deranged lead.
Robertson is such an awful man that there’s a real risk inherent in any telling of this story that he could be just too despicable for an audience to want to spend so much time with him, but McAvoy is so engaging as a performer that you can’t ever take your eyes off of him, even as he’s taking joy in doing things that you find repellant. More than that though, this screenplay is always smart enough to keep him from becoming completely irredeemable. He gets a moment or two where he’s clearly aching to get his shit together to the point where he could be considered a real person, and he does have a handful of mysterious and traumatic past experiences that are driving his behavior; all of which is just perfect material for McAvoy to dig into and bring to life with his expressive face, which is so good at conveying multiple emotions at once. Filth isn’t anything great, but it’s worth checking out thanks to the work put in by its star.
