Filth

Plot

Bruce Robertson, a detective sergeant in Edinburgh, is a scheming, manipulative and misanthropic bully who spends his free time indulging in drugs, alcohol, abusive sexual relationships, and "the games" – his euphemism for vindictive plots he hatches to cause trouble for people he dislikes, including many of his colleagues in the Lothian and Borders Police.

Bruce also delights in bullying and taking advantage of his mild-mannered friend Clifford Blades, a member of Bruce's masonic lodge, whose wife, Bunty, is the target of his repeated obscene phone calls. He only shows genuine warmth to Mary and her young son, the widowed wife and child of a man whom he tries and fails to resuscitate after he suffers a heart attack in the street.

As the story begins, Bruce's main goal is to gain a promotion to become Detective Inspector (DI), the path to which appears to open when he is assigned to oversee the investigation into the murder of a Japanese exchange student. However, Bruce slowly loses his grip on reality as he works the case and has more and more vivid hallucinations.

It is ultimately revealed through dream-like exchanges with Dr. Rossi, Bruce's psychiatrist, that he is on medication for bipolar disorder and has repressed immense feelings of guilt over a childhood accident that led to the death of his younger brother. Additionally, Bruce's wife, Carole, has recently left him and is denying him access to his daughter, Stacey.

These domestic issues have not only sparked his desperate bid for promotion, but played a part in his unusual displays of kindness toward Mary and her son. They have also led him to begin cross-dressing as his wife while off duty, in order to "keep her close" to him.

While wandering the streets cross-dressed, Bruce is kidnapped by a street gang led by the thuggish Gorman (who are responsible for the murder of the Japanese student) and is left badly beaten. However, he manages to kill Gorman by throwing him through a window and is found by his colleagues. Bruce not only misses out on the promotion as a result of the events, but is in fact demoted to Constable and is reassigned to uniform, while his friend and rookie Ray Lennox is promoted to Detective Inspector.

Production

Welsh's novel was published in 1998, but over the following years the project was passed between producers and acquired a reputation of being "un-filmable".

Music

Track listing

Source:

Other notable pieces include

Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio

"Libiamo Ne'lieti Calici (Brindisi)

Sandstorm

Mr. Vain

Theme from Elvira Madigan

Les noces de Figaro, K. 492: Ouverture

La donna è mobile

Reception

Box office

The film earned £250,000 in the box office revenue during its opening weekend in Scotland, reaching number one in the charts. It grossed £842,167 ($1.4m) in the following weekend, when it went on general release throughout the United Kingdom. The film ultimately ended up grossing $9.1 million worldwide.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 66% of 95 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Warped, grimy, and enthusiastically unpleasant, Filth lives up to its title splendidly." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Damon Wise's 2013 review for Empire rated the film four stars out of five, praising Baird's "steady hand on the throttle" and McAvoy's "delirious, demonic performance."

Peter Bradshaw was less enthused in his review for The Guardian, calling it "a bizarre, dyspeptic vomit of despair in a violent world where everyone in the lineup is Begbie." However, Bradshaw notes the film is appropriately (for Welsh's work) unsubtle, and praises performances by Eddie Marsan and John Sessions.

Accolades

The film earned McAvoy several awards, including best actor at the British Independent Film Awards 2013 and Scottish BAFTAs 2014. Jon Baird was a nominee at the same ceremonies in directing categories.