Crush

Colour, 35mm
United Kingdom, Germany, 2001, 112 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Kate, Janine and Molly, attractive forty-year-olds, are inseparable friends. They enjoy a certain status in the small central English town where they live but, when they meet up each Monday for cigarettes and cakes, they prefer to talk about men than about their work. The most experienced of them is Molly who has three dramatic divorces behind her, and Janine has been left with an uncontrollable son from a relationship in her student days, now trying to come to terms with puberty. So, it’s no surprise that men are not in with much of a chance, a view shared by the still single Kate. Until the day of a colleague’s funeral, that is, when a spark ignites between her and young Jed, her former pupil. Momentary passion turns to love and the friends are unsettled at the thought that their little “association” might break up. They are also startled at the fifteen-year age gap between the lovers, so Molly thinks up a plan to save the “unfortunate” Kate. Her actions have fatal consequences… A film which uses comic hyperbole to prove that not even best friends should become too involved in each others’ affairs.

About the director

John McKay studied at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in Great Britain. He first made short films, one of them Doom and Gloom won Best Film at the Brest festival in l998. He also made shorts for Channel Four, where he shared in a series of dramas entitled Psychos. The film Crush, for which he also wrote the screenplay, is McKay’s feature debut.