A lovely, lovely film. The story is set in 1972 and about the friendship of a young second-generation Indian girl (Meena) with a pretty blond English girl (Anita) in a small rural town called Tollington.
The difficulties and envies encountered by your regular immigrant adolescent are all there. But what makes this story so special is the situation of the local girl on the host side of the divide. Anita's family has fallen apart, there is not much future for her, all the social mobility denied in advance. For a diligent, smart, and hard-working immigrant family, Meena and the parents are entitled for upward mobility and they do achieve their goals. On the other hand, the poor local whites are left behind, knowing not what to do in the face of changes, and the situation is epitomized in Anita's life, who just stands there watching when the "Paki-bashing" boyfriend and his gangs kick an Indian man to death.
Well. After all this, Meena's feelings toward Anita is rather incomprehensible. Her attachment is too strong. That makes the story weak, after all. Yet there are many fine moments in the film and it's worth viewing repeatedly to learn the dialect of the mining region (I really had hard time following it).
"Stupid bloody wogs" is what a nice English lady says to Meena and her mother. I also learned that girlfriends call each other "wench."
