That Sinking Feeling

“It’s SH*TE being Scottish!” is a resounding statement across Scottish cinema beyond just Trainspotting. In fact, Scottish cinema is no stranger to showing the depressing nature of living in a country that rains 300 days of the year and has a sleugh of social, economic and well-being issues. What we have a hard time producing, however, is any motion picture that shows the joys and quirks of our wee country. That Sinking Feeling just so happens to nail both of these concepts; certainly not shying away from the honest truth of Scotland’s idiosyncratic misery, but also highlights and celebrates the creativity and humour of Scotland’s youth. 

Premiering in 1979 at Edinburgh International Film Festival, That Sinking Feeling is Bill Forsyth’s debut into the filmmaking world. Best known for his Gregory’s Girl and Local Hero fame, Forsyth had humble beginnings with this poignant, small-budget comedy featuring a cast of young actors picked up from the Scottish Youth Theatre (four of which followed him into Gregory’s Girl).

Forsyth opens his feature with a caution that “The action of this film takes place in a fictitious town called GLASGOW. Any resemblance to any real town called GLASGOW is purely coincidental”, making the audience believe that the film and its contents do not take themselves seriously. Along with this, the entire premise of the film - a couple of teens orchestrating a sink heist - convinces watchers that this is all a just a gag. But what lies beneath the surface is an extremely heartfelt film about the highs and lows of being a teenager, of being Scottish, of being unemployed and skint, and of having dreams bigger than opportunities. 

Life in dreary, rainy Glasgow is depressing for jobless and hopeless teens Ronnie (Robert Buchanan), Wal (Billy Greenlees), Andy (John Gordon Sinclair) and Vic (John Hughes) as they roam around between Kelvingrove and Cowcaddens, to Springburn and East Kilbride, often contemplating bizarre ways of committing suicide. To pass the time, and perhaps make a quick buck, Ronnie devises an entrepreneurial plan to carry out a sink heist and steal 90 stainless steel sinks from a warehouse (try saying that fast) to sell them on for profit. You might be thinking “What would you even do with 90 sinks?”, but then you’d be asking the wrong question. “What would you do to steal 90 sinks?” For Ronnie and his band of thieves, the answer is: dress up as women to seduce a security guard, employ a primary school kid to do your slinking about, and develop an extremely strong tranquiliser in order to hijack a Morton’s bread rolls van (aptly named the “stop-motion potion”, the tranquiliser puts the van driver to sleep until 2068 – when “medicine will progress to a point that everyone in Paisley will be able to have a brain transplant…”).

Despite plotting the sink theft like it’s some sort of a diamond heist, things inevitably go awry for the gang. Sure, they steal a few sinks, but they then have a tough time trying to sell them. Now you can ask “What would you do with 90 sinks?”. These fellas, for example, kept the sinks in their stolen Morton’s bread van, but then accidentally stole an identical van that had donuts instead of sinks. So that’s one use for that many sinks, I suppose – and at least you can eat donuts! Alternatively, you could take the sinks to an art gallery in Edinburgh just like one of these guys and sell them to an art dealer for £200. Not the best outcome for the amount of work that went into the stealing of so many stainless steel sinks, but not too bad either for guys who just want 46p to buy a roll and sausage in the morning.

Opening with shaggy hair, denim flares, and a monologue about making the most of what life offers you because “Life isn’t meant to be easy” cements That Sinking Feeling as a remarkable yet unappreciated landmark of Scottish cinema, highlighting a specific nostalgic time period where young people couldn’t get jobs, afford to move out, or even buy themselves a meal – (unfortunately) not dissimilar to experiences of today’s young people. That Sinking Feeling is part of BFI FAN’s Rip It Up season at GFT, exploring and celebrating the changing face of youth culture on screen in the UK. While the film is a perfect snapshot of Scotland in the late 70’s, it is equally relatable and meaningful today, 47 years after the film’s release. 

Celebrating youth culture should mean embracing the good and the bad bits that different generations have experienced, and That Sinking Feeling really delivers that in a way that very few films have been able to. Jane Graham wrote in her review of the film for The Guardian that “certainly for Glaswegians, there have been few films since (and certainly none before) that so successfully conjured up the melancholy romance of the tenements of Raintown, and the funny, sparky inhabitants who sparkle like diamonds against its landscape”. So why don’t more people know about this gem of a film? 

Forsyth made That Sinking Feeling with reportedly less than £5,000 scrounged together from donations from local businesses, and at time of release it held the record for the cheapest film in the UK to receive a theatrical release. “I couldn’t actually afford real actors, and I certainly hadn’t any experience working with them. So, I asked the teenagers at a Glasgow community centre if they would appear in my movie at no pay.” said Bill Forsyth of his casting choice, which adds to the authenticity and relatability of the story greatly. The lads feel like real Glasgow, and while to a Scottish audience this is a win, it didn’t go down quite as well elsewhere in the world, and certainly not across the pond. Following Forsyth’s success with Gregory’s Girl and later films, MGM took on the project of re-releasing his filmography to American audiences – but first decided to re-record and dub over the original dialogue to feature ‘softer’ accents and voices (i.e. Edinburgh accents), and to make it less ‘Scottish’. Aye, just take the Scottish-ness out of the Scottish film about Scottish life in Scotland. The re-dubbing in fact cost MGM more than the entire film cost to make – worth it? Forsyth fans have been rightly disgruntled regarding this unnecessary and vulgar treatment of the film, especially when it was released to DVD with only the re-dubbed version and the distributor claimed that the original audio track was damaged and long-gone. Fortunately, BFI’s Flipside label have successfully managed to restore the original Glesga dialogue and offer viewers the choice of the authentic version or the fake, posh version.

The film’s history and treatment from those outside Scotland speaks to much of Scotland’s own history and reputation. People like the idea of Scotland (the kilts, shortbread, highland coos, Edinburgh castle, and the whole Braveheart thing), but when it comes to actual Scottish stories being represented in media (and I mean real stories that show the bad and the good; the drugs, the abuse, the depression, but also the cheery, funny side of us), the support falls short and we need to be toned down, Anglicised or subtitled. That Sinking Feeling was programmed for Rip It Up at GFT by real young people living in Scotland who felt that this film not only deserves more recognition, but that it also speaks to the characters, settings and stories we want to see more of on the big screen. 

I would like to end with a short bit about my favourite scene in the film. It’s the one where the boys are sitting in the broken-down car and Ronnie asks them “Did you have a good day?” and they respond, “Very enjoyable.” and such. But then there’s a beat and they all look miserable. One of them actually says, “It’s miserable, innit?” and Ronnie says “Yeah… I tried to kill myself today. I took a mouthful of cornflakes and milk, held my nose shut. I tried to drown myself in cornflakes and milk!”. They go through their own ideas of how they’d planned to commit suicide, along the lines of electrocution or jumping out the window in high flats. The scene ends with “There’s got to be something more to life than committing suicide.” I think this scene summarises my thoughts on why the film is so brilliant – it takes conversations that countless young people have had with their friends and doesn’t shy away from talking about these things. It shows the multifaceted reality of being depressed – by one’s circumstances in life – and desperate for things to get better, but also still having good humour and being able to talk to your mates about it, and at the end of the day not giving up hope that things will get better. 

To conclude, That Sinking Feeling, in this young Scot’s opinion, is an important artifact of Scottish youth culture through the ages. From its own complicated accent-heist-dubbing fiasco, to the variety of themes and feelings it explores, Forsyth’s debut feature is a testament to the quality and range of films that come out of Scotland, and deserve to be appreciated by audiences worldwide.