★★☆☆☆ Simon Aboud’s coming-of-age love story Comes a Bright Day (2012) stars up-and-coming UK starlets Craig Roberts and Imogen Poots as a pair of ill-matched lovers who find themselves at the centre of a jewellery store hold-up. A violent robbery may be not be the most conventional setting for a blossoming romance, yet aspiring entrepreneur-come bellboy Sam (Roberts) and beautiful shop assistant Mary (Poots) find their lives inexplicable merged when they find themselves held hostage by a pair of malevolent thieves. Once the shutters are fastened shut we’re left to observe the tense and uneasy interactions between Sam, Mary and Charlie.
Maintaining the attentions of an audience throughout the course of a feature film can be difficult at the best of times. Sadly it feels like director Aboud may have taken on a little too much by attempting to keep his audience captivated within such a claustrophobic and unyielding setting.
Despite some elegant camera work and a notable performance by Poots, Comes a Bright Day feels incredibly pedestrian, failing to expand upon the heightened sense of peril evoked through the film’s ferocious opening act, slowly succumbing to a lethargic and monotonous series of encounters which sadly become progressively more tedious. Aboud’s latest also sadly bows out on a sour note with a heavily signposted ending.
It’s perhaps the frustration that such talented creative minds have come together to create something so infuriatingly banal that dilutes the film’s finer points. Some unavoidable plot holes only become magnified by this nagging sense of underachievement. Slowly wearing down it audience into a comatose cinematic state of nonchalance, Comes a Bright Day is unfortunately a totally forgettable experience, which, whilst in no danger of damaging its talented cast’s bright futures, certainly does nothing to enhance them.