There is not one single shred of "amateur" about these performances. Not the smallest hint. After a long casting process, writer-director Hammer brought them all together, and they discussed their characters. Hammer described the general outline. They improvised potential scenes, every day for two months. The Mike Leigh approach. They all agreed that they had the final form more or less right. They were never given a finished script. They didn't have to memorize dialogue, because they knew it from inside out: Who they were, how they would say these things, how they would feel, what they would do.

There is a fourth named character, their neighbor, John (Johnny McPhail). He is their friend and will help them if he can. He is not a saintly do-gooder. He is a decent man, has done OK in life, is older, is tactful, doesn't butt in when he isn't needed. He is a good neighbor, not The Good Neighbor. Then there are some kids who are alarming influences on James. Have you ever known a 12-year-old who didn't know kids who are bad influences? Of course, if your kid is a bad influence, it's those other kids who got him that way.

Life goes on from day to day. We grow more and more intensely absorbed. The film uses no devices to punch up tension, manufacture suspense, underline motives. When there is anger, we see it coming from a long way away, and we watch it take its time to subside. Ordinary life begins to stir, because it must. There is an ending that in one sense we probably anticipated, but it's like very few endings. When it comes, we think, Yes. It would be like that. Exactly like that. We don't even need to see their faces. We feel their hearts.