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LIMBO

Cert 12A

104 mins

BBFC advice: Contains infrequent strong language, racism, references to sex and sexual violence

"Come off it, refugees have it easy. They are put up in five-star hotels while the rest of us suffer."

I paraphrase literally dozens of comments on a social media post about asylum-seekers being made welcome by British people with kindness in their souls.

The haters have some warped idea of illegal aliens who have come to our shores, believing they rape and pillage while living in the lap of luxury.

The truth is, of course, far from that. People seek asylum only when they are desperate. They have likely lost family members to war and/or oppressors.

And often they find the grass in the UK  isn't as green as they had hoped.

This is fertile ground for satire in Ben Sharrock's superb Limbo - a funny but hard-hitting take on the refugee experience.

It centres on Omar (Amir El-Masry), a Syrian musician whose brother (Kais Nashif) remains fighting in their homeland.

Thus, he is wracked with guilt and his emotions flow when he calls his parents who have also fled to Turkey.

El-Masry's delivery is perfectly pitched - deadpan against the strange behaviours going on around him in his temporary home on a Scottish island.

The most hilarious distraction is the lessons in British culture for the immigrants. We certainly guffawed as the teachers played out acceptable and unacceptable dance moves.

While Omar is distressed at his plight, his Afghani (Vikash Bhai) housemate is more pragmatic.

We discovered both men's backstories and those of others as they are met with a UK system which often lets them down.

Limbo reflects the darkness which envelops refugees who have witnessed trauma, find themselves in alien environments from an often hostile local population.

But it is the belly laughs - often sparked by the well-meaning efforts of the friendlier locals - which sets Sharrock's film apart. 

It is, in view, one of the films of the year.

Reasons to watch: Smart, funny and important

Reasons to avoid: If you don't have a sense of humour

Laughs: Five

Jumps: None

Vomit: Yes

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 9.5/10

Did you know? An estimated 388,000 foreign-born people living in the UK in 2019 originally came to the UK to seek asylum, according to Migration Observatory analysis of the Labour Force Survey. This is equivalent to 0.6% of the UK’s total 2019 resident population of around 67 million. Of these, 56% had lived in the UK for sixteen years or more.

The final word. Ben Sharrock: "Limbo started with me living in Syria during my undergraduate degree in Arabic and Politics at Edinburgh University when I spent my third year in Damascus. I made friends in Syria and some have become asylum seekers." The Scotsman

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