Hampstead: sensitive romance, not for teens

Hampstead was my favourite suburb in the entire world – my spouse and I ate at the vegetarian restaurant there every week for two years! But I had never seen the disused hospit­al on the edge of the Heath that was shown in the film.     

Donald and Emily in "Hampstead"

catching dinner, 2017

Diane Keaton played the well-spoken, well dressed, middle class American widow Emily Walters, a woman who was strug­gling to revive nor­mal life, a year after becoming a widow. Emily lived in a block of flats opposite Hampstead Heath and worked in a charity shop. She had ser­ious fin­ancial problems because of her late husband’s neglig­ence; she was worried about her ability to repair her upmarket Hampstead mansion and to pay for it into the future. Alas Emily had no professional skills that she could draw upon. 

Brendan Gleeson played Donald Horner, a gruff and badly dressed Ir­ish tramp. He was also struggling against the world around him. For years, he lived in a fall-down shed on the edge of London’s rat­her wild and beaut­iful Hampstead Heath. Donald squatted in his small shack, grew his own vegetables and caught fish from the local lake.

The first glimpse of Donald was totally accidental. Emily caught him wash­ing himself in a lake and began watching him from her attic with an old pair of her late husband’s high-powered binoculars. The binoc­ulars became important later in the film when they were sold at auction, to raise money for Emily’s new home.

Inevitably the authorities wanted the tramp remov­ed so they could grab the val­uable land, demol­ish Donald’s shed and make way for a luxury development for wealthy families. But Donald was not leaving his so-called home without a fight.

The prop­erty market in London was and is indeed run by in­vest­ors, a terrible prob­lem for renters, as I personally experienced. The film started to deal with Lond­on’s chronic housing issues and the greed­iness of Lon­don property developers, but not in the depth that seem­ed necessary. If anything, the film focused more on the smugness of the Hampstead trendies than on capitalist greed.

Yet these Hampstead trendies were the least gentle, the most note­worthy characters in the film. The supporting actors Lesley Manville (Emily’s snotty neighbour Fiona), and Jason Watkins (Emily’s sleazy acc­ountant) were disruptive, but they grabbed the viewer’s attent­ion. Em­ily’s neigh­bourhood committee was a group of snob­by Hampstead women led by her friend Fiona. Fiona apparently supported the sist­erhood while actually working towards her own goals. With no careers to worry about, these women spent time drawing up petitions to prot­ect their beloved Heath, their beloved salmon and every other cause.

 

Athlone House is a large Victorian house/hospital

on the northern edge of Hampstead Heath

Most of the reviews I read said the film completely lacked the irony and biting social observ­ation they expected from a Joel Hopkins-directed film. Let me note one delightful image: when Emily met Donald, he was sitting below Karl Marx’s tomb in Highgate Cemetery!

But apart from some rare displays of open anger (eg when Emily vis­ited her late husband’s grave, the result was quite violent), most of the film was in­deed rath­er soothing. Perhaps that was be­cause the film was designed as a romantic comedy for older aud­ien­ces. In our Melbourne cinema, I am guessing that the average age of the viewers was about 65. Even Emily Walters looked 65 or more – the ordinary grey hair, the passive hesitant behaviour, the constant financial chal­lenge.

The court case in the film was unexpected, but telling. Donald exp­lain­ed that he was very careful about not harming the environment, but the judge still required written proof of the length of Donald’s stay in his shed. Phil Davis, a bad-tempered arse who briefly met Donald 17 years be­fore, became the critical witness to save the legal case. Simon Cal­low was the judge who heard the Donald Horner v Property Investors case.

 

Karl Marx's grave

Highgate Hill Cemetery

Having lived through London’s housing prices for 2+ years back in the early 1970s, I identified strongly throughout the entire film. And if Joel Hopkins wanted middle aged audiences on the brink of retire­ment think about their new life, I strongly identified with that too. The only important criticism I had concerned the very end of the film when Donald had thrown Emily out, presumably for the last time. If he did or did not change his mind, the audience needed to make up its own mind. Not have it presented as a perfectly tied-up, mega-romantic final episode.

The credits note that the film was based, at least partly, on a true story. Irishman Harry Hallowes did indeed live for 30 years in a hut he built for himself on the Heath. When developers tried to get rid of Hal­l­owes, he took them to court and won the legal title to his prop­erty, honouring his adverse right of possession in 2005. Hallowes was known as Britain's wealthiest vagrant, because the land turned out to be worth more than £2 million. He died in Feb 2016, just as the film was going into production.