Director – Fil Freitas – 2025 – UK – Cert. 12 tbc – 105m
***1/2
A single day shift in the working life of the staff at London’s legendary Prince Charles Cinema – out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 22nd
2019, that halcyon time before the global pandemic. Independent repertory cinemas struggle on, their poorly paid staff a hotbed of frustrated creativity. This is as true of London’s Prince Charles Cinema (the PCC) as anywhere. Fil Freitas (playing himself, also the writer-director) can’t seem to get out of bed in time for his PCC shifts, scarcely helped by his sharing it (and his life in rented flat hell) with fellow PCC worker Dusty Keeney (playing herself, also the producer). Then, to compound his lateness for work, is the small matter of his inability to open the front door due to someone having dumped an oven outside it, a smartphone photo of which helps on this occasion to provide him with an excuse for being late. Still, his unflustered boss Sam (Ricardo Freitas) makes him sign the late book. (“Really?”)
Despite this start which feels very much like a start, there’s no real plot to speak of here beyond the (perfectly good) idea of portraying a day in the workinglife of the staff at the PCC, so the film ends at the close of day as everyone clocks off after their shift. That marks it out as different from the recent health service in crisis drama Late Shift, (Petra Blondina Volpe, 2025), which used a similar day in the working life structure and a real plot building up to a crisis and catharsis – there’s no such crisis or catharsis in The Regulars. Rather, this is an excuse to explore two tiers of characters in the largely indoor environment of the PCC’s front of house counter, bar, offices, corridors, screens and lavatories. A convincing picture of a working day in cinema hospitality.
Along with Dusty and Sam, the first tier of characters include additional, assorted PCC staff members: co-workers unique Caroline (Lisa Marie Flowers) and easy-going Flavio (Sergio Barba), first day on the job new girl Sophie (Bronte Appleby), worldly-wise projectionist Dan (Kevin Johnson), incendiary barman Rob (Robert Smith), and somewhat aloof executive director Becca (Lauren Shotton), all of whom appear throughout the narrative (much as I hesitate to use that term for this largely plot-free endeavour). The second tier (for whom, sadly, I’m unable to supply name credits) comprise a motley group of customers – the eponymous regulars – who appear for one scene only in which they among other things are interacting with front of house, doing their business in the lavatory cubicles, or causing a drunken fracas at the bar.
The piece’s most obvious model is Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994), the black and white, comic directorial debut about a group of video store assistants in the US. The Regulars possesses a similar deadpan humour, including gags about things that go on in public workplace lavatories, although I remember Clerks being funnier. (It might not be: it’s been a while since I last watched it.) At one point, a poster for Chasing Amy (Kevin Smith, 1977) can be seen on prominent display. At another, so can a trailer for 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), the latter movie inspiring a memorable discussion. The film avoids the obvious route of sequences with film clips being watched by punters, which is a good move not least because it would entail considerable additional budgetary costs and producer headaches with rights issues, although mention is made and later scenes are staged of punters arriving for an evening sing-a-long screening, an event much derided by certain members of the staff.
Freitas’ character Fil is possessed of a certain, undeniable gormless charm, while his co-workers are mostly portrayed as a pretty hapless lot who keep your eyes glued to the screen. Some (if not all – the perfunctory press handouts aren’t clear on this point) of them are played by Freitas and Keeney’s former PCC colleagues. It’s almost – if not quite – a fly on the wall documentary – almost, because while it feels like you’re watching a documentary, most of it is actually staged (possibly with much use of improvisation). It’s light years away from that bona fide documentary on arguably the greatest (former) London repertory cinema of them all, SCALA!!! Or, the incredibly strange rise and fall of the world’s wildest cinema and how it influenced a mixed-up generation of weirdos and misfits, Ali Catterall, Jane Giles, 2023).
Like Clerks, the whole thing is shot in black and white – actually the black and white in Clerks is pretty ropey, whereas the black and white here is well composed and suggests cinematographer Ben Rolph, a clear asset to the production, has both an impressive eye and a promising career in front of him.
Alas, would that the same could be said for the film’s editing. The directing and producing duo clearly have a vision, which makes it onto the screen. That said, it’s hard to believe that out of all the people they worked with at the Prince Charles, there wasn’t one (or maybe even two or three) who was (were) really good at editing. A few moments demonstrate great, comic timing, yet these come down to a strong scripting, good directing or a mixture of the two, bolstered no end by good performances from the cast, many of who are, as far as one can tell, non-actors playing themselves.
Overall, the film feels about 20 minutes too long, and drags in places, as if the director was unable, as the saying goes, to “kill his babies”. A good editor – or team of editors – could have worked wonders with Freitas’ material, trimming or even altogether losing some of it, and gaining that certain extra something in the process.
Perhaps that is too carp a little too much, because Freitas and Keeney’s film remains an impressive achievement on many levels. For a film school graduate who has been stuck two years working in the cinema hospitality sector, to write and direct a film about that employment experience is not to be sneezed at. The film (everything but the early morning opening, which takes place in daylight) was shot on location both inside and outside the PCC, with much of the actual shoot taking place between midnight and 7am, when the cinema is closed for business (the occasional all-night screening notwithstanding). I was reminded of The Most Dangerous Game a.k.a. The Hounds of Zaroff (Irving Pichel, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1932), shot on the set of King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933) by most of the same cast and crew at night.
The Prince Charles, incidentally, comes off well enough here as a decent, if financially challenged, employer compared to some of the more mainstream chains who are given short shrift in occasional, brief dialogue asides by characters who have previously worked in them.
The Regulars is out in cinemas in the UK on August 22nd.
Website: https://www.theregularsfilm.com
Trailer: