A Scotsman, Englishman and Irishman walk into a homeless shelter at Christmas. The Irishman gets blind drunk and falls headfirst into a game bird’s breast. The Englishman picks up a handful of Brussels sprouts and slam dunks them into the open-mouthed hoop of a giggling basket case. But the Scotsman refrains from obliging with a punchline for his wife and daughter died in a drink driving accident almost sixteen years to the day and three days after New Year he will be first-footing The Golden Jubilee Hospital for a far from routine operation. Deck the halls with boughs of holly? You might end up getting decked!
As you can imagine, Hector by writer, photographer and debut director Jack Gavin is not your run-of-the-mill festive frolic. Yet nor is it a wrist-slasher. Peter Mullan plays the titular everyman, down on his luck, who there but for the grace of God go you and I: an ex-naval officer who “fell out with life” after the death of his family and “woke up one morning and fucked off”. After being caught running up and down the streets of Manchester screaming at passing cars, he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and drifted from halfway house to halfway house until he decided that life on the street was preferable to an existence with “broken souls”.
Along the hard shoulders and cold comforts of service stations and bus shelters, he develops a close friendship with Northern teenager Hazel (Natalie Gavin) and fellow Scot Dougie (Laurie Ventry) whose colourful grasp of the English language makes Roy Chubby Brown sound like his namesake Charlie. “The monkeys are still looking for their proverbials,” his sole concession to polite conversation. Dressed in waterproofed and fleece-lined hi-vis jackets courtesy of a white van man who, tapping his nose, said they fell off the back of a lorry, the gleesome threesome resemble “three fucking lollipop men of the apocalypse” as they try to hitchhike a lift to London for their annual Christmas dinner at a homeless shelter.
En route, he leafs through a scrapbook of old photographs and letters, which inspire him to get in touch with his sister Lizzie (Gina McKee) and brother Peter (Ewan Stewart) who he has not seen in over a decade. But his best-laid schemes gang swift agley when his smug car salesman of a brother-in-law (Stephen Tompkinson) tells him in no uncertain terms to get tae France and his tongue lets rip like a torn gutty when Peter passes judgement on his homeless lifestyle: “If you don’t mind me saying, a conscientious bin-man doesn’t sound like much of a life to me either.”
Whether Hector finds happiness in his luck-starved life or rekindles his relationship with his estranged siblings is left hanging in the air by the final enigmatic shot, which shows him standing at a crossroads and deciding which path to take. But what is not in question is the trademark warmth and charm of Peter Mullan’s performance and the refreshing simplicity of Jake Gavin’s script, which although light in weight and short of seasoning is a welcome alternative to the traditional festive turkey.