You know what might be refreshing? A coming-of-age story from the UK that isn't about a grubby kid from a poor family with a drunk father. Apparently, films like these are as rare as reasonably priced drinks at an airport bar. Ratcatcher offers more of the same bleak-beyond-belief storytelling you’ve come to expect from a film set in 1973 Glasgow and offers nothing new except accents so thick the film had to be subtitled for those unfamiliar with the Scottish brogue.

Ratcatcher takes place in and around a dilapidated Glaswegian housing project on the banks of a filthy canal. The scheme, like the rest of the city, is buried in garbage, thanks to a crippling nine-week garbage strike. The unpredictable story begins focused on a boy who, in the film's first five minutes, drowns in the canal while playing with the similarly aged James (William Eadie). It's a bit jolting when the character you thought would be at the center of the film is killed off in such a fashion.

With his friend dead, James becomes Ratcatcher's main character. He feels guilty about not trying to save his friend from the murky canal but seems to get over the situation with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders. On the threshold of adolescence, James has ears like Stewie from Malcolm in the Middle, a loving but distant Ma, a curvy older sister who could be Daphne Zuniga's twin, a retarded best friend and, of course, a drunk dad who ignores his family for his beloved Celtic (and, frankly, who wouldn't snub the squalor for an Old Firm match). The father is played by Tommy Flanagan, who is probably best known as the guy with the creepy facial scars from Gladiator (they're real, by the way).

James' family is on the waiting list to move into new three-bedroom homes being built on the outskirts of the city. Part of James' "coming of age" is sneaking out to the construction site to peek at what could potentially become his new stomping grounds. The other part of the "coming of age" is the strange relationship James forges with an older girl from his scheme. She's nerdy and unpopular, offering her body as an attempt to gain popularity with the boys. They share a bath and pick lice out of each other's hair.

If the Farrelly brothers made a film where kids played with dead dog carcasses and combed through each other's greasy locks for parasites, the arthouse crowd would turn up their noses and vilify the picture as needlessly graphic and unwholesome for the impressionable youth that it would irreparably damage. But as long as the actors have accents, stuff like this (not to mention the underage nudity) suddenly becomes art. Don't get me wrong - it's not a bad film by any means. It's just a lot more mediocre than anybody else is letting on.

There are good parts to Ratcatcher. Rachel Portman's (Chocolat) score may be her best ever, and the cinematography (from The Claim's Alwin H. Kuchler) is, at times, quite smashing. I liked the contrast between James' current living situation (gray, grimy and cramped) to what he hopes will become his new home (white, clean and full of open spaces).

Actingwise, Eadie makes you appreciate how amazing Jamie Bell was in Billy Elliot (a rare British coming-of-age film that doesn't make you want to take your own life). They're both newcomers to acting, but only one can carry a film. Ratcatcher was written and directed by Lynne Ramsay, who won the Best Short Film award at the 1998 Cannes fest.

1:33 -

but contains nudity (involving pre-teens), violence, adult language and sexual situations