I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning Review

What resonates with me in I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning is the feeling of hitting 30 and not knowing where your life is going. You have friends who are richer; friends with families; friends who are in a worse place, but seemingly happier. Eventually you realise it’s pointless to compare yourself consistently to others. Find your own happiness and make your own life.

Clio Barnand’s film frames the human destructive nature, paired with the now seemingly unattainable dream of owning a home and having a family against the collapse of the housing market. Like a flash, everything can change.

The bookends of I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning are two club scenes where our core cast are all together living in the moment, just boys having a night. But their shared experience growing up together has changed drastically in the years that passed. Patrick (Anthony Boyle) is married to Shiv (Lola Petticrew) with kids; Rian (Joe Cole) has escaped to London and made it big in trading; Oli (Jay Lycurgo) just turned 30, but has held nothing but his drug-dealing hustle; and Connor is about to have his first baby with partner Sophie (Lucie Shorthouse) but is struggling to balance the load and building project. That loan and investor is also Rian, but Connor doesn’t want to open up about his money problems.

All of these characters were boys who started in the same place, but life is moving fast, and now they’re in so many different places. 

Director Clio Barnard gets fantastic performances out of the whole cast. At times quite poignant, with other bombastic breaking points and emotional elastic bands snapping back into place. They all feel raw, real and like lads grabbed off the street. 

Although the film can be very busy at first, as it jumps around the five main characters and keeps you up to date with their lives and introduces each of their lives and inner turmoil, it can feel like a lot at first, but the film does a good job of eventually balancing all of that into a steady pace. You’re often processing the performances on screen and the emotional boiling out of the frame or bubbling up in the corners rather than being directly told what is going on and who is feeling what way. But you’ll find it hard to look away from all of these details and performances thanks to this cast.

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