I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING
United Kingdom
2025 | 109 min. | Fiction

On the cusp of turning 30, Patrick, Shiv, Rian, Oli and Conor, five childhood friends from the same Birmingham estate, are suddenly forced to confront a life where their hopes and dreams haven't materialised. They are all walking the high wire. But which one will fall?

Directed by: Clio Barnard
Written by: Enda Walsh
Produced by: Tracy O'Riordan, Jennifer Monks
Cinematography: Simon Tindall
Editing: Maya Maffioli
Production Design: Janey Levick
Costume Design: Matt Price
Make-Up & Hair: Zoe Clare Brown
Original Score: Harry Escott
Sound: Paul Davies, Adam Fletcher
Visual Effects: Evren Olgun
Casting: Shaheen Baig
Cast: Anthony Boyle (Patrick), Joe Cole (Rian), Jay Lycurgo (Oli), Daryl McCormack (Conor), Lola Petticrew (Shiv), Millie Brady (Emma), James Eeles (Marcus), Lucie Shorthouse (Sophie)

Statement of the director:
Enda Walsh read I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING by Keiran Goddard and wanted to adapt it for the screen and asked me if I’d be interested in reading it with a view to directing. I read it, and I loved it. I didn’t want it to end, because I wanted to carry on being with the people within and I loved the way the politics was integrated.

Keiran set the novel on a deliberately unnamed Midlands council estate in order to highlight the similar social and economic challenges faced by the working class across the UK and beyond. The fact that Keiran grew up in similar circumstances and the way he uses language and imagery to render the felt experience of working-class lives were compelling reasons to make the film and bring his voice and these characters to a cinema audience.

All my films since THE ARBOR (2010) have involved participatory process - working closely with people from the community where I am making and setting the film to create characters inspired by real people. In this instance, the characters are fictional, but by collaborating with local Birmingham communities in and around where we shot the film, I was able to depict the characters within the texture and particularity of their environment. We had a huge open casting and held acting workshops in the local social club where the pub scenes were filmed, with several of the staff members working on the film as advisors and supporting artists. Because of this, the film is deeply grounded in, and shaped by, the communities the novel aims to depict and, ultimately, to honour.

The novel is written as five first person monologues so part of the challenge of the adaptation was to bring these characters to the screen using cinematic language and avoiding the use of voice over. This led to the 5 portraits shots, shot on 16mm. It seemed to me that each of the characters had a different relationship with time, and celluloid has such a direct relationship with time. We also wanted to prioritise character and performance with the actors and non-actors, whilst shooting on location in tiny houses and flats. Therefore, the cinematographer and I chose a Ronin rig for maximum flexibility and matched this footage to the 16mm portraits.

A film of five portraits:

Shiv is very much in the here and now, she sees things others might not see - the way the light comes through the curtains and travels round the room, her girls laughing, the smell of Conor and Sophie’s new baby, the joy of drinking white wine at 10.30am with a custard cream to make it sort of okay. For her, each moment is dynamic and alive. It’s not what you look at, it’s what you see.

For Rian time has stopped. He’s struggling to connect. The soulless tower where he lives is a total contrast to the real messy human warmth of his childhood community.

For Oli time is elastic, the world is weird, distorted, wonderful - the highs and lows of getting wasted. Oli doesn’t know how much time has passed. How long has he stood in front of the open fridge? The life and soul, loved by everyone in the group, Oli's the man who can say it like it is and get away with it. Playful, irreverent, gorgeous.

Patrick is a realist. The hard graft of his job. The pressure he feels to maintain his family. His fierce love for Shiv. His intense intelligence and political anger. There is a quiet fury in Patrick who can see the big picture of late-stage capitalism and can’t bring himself to participate in it. He anchors himself to Shiv because she knows how to live each moment.

Conor is doing his best to participate despite the odds being stacked against him. He is trying so hard, too hard, to be enterprising, to be a boss, a homeowner, a breadwinner, a father. But the pressure is too much. A man who has always been quick to violence, he’s working so hard to keep a lid on his struggle, to be the man he feels he should be.

Through the story of five lifelong friends, the film explores the challenge of making a bearable, hopefully even beautiful life, in the midst of structural challenges to our sense of self, our sense of belonging, our sense of security and our relationship to hope. We follow these characters as they navigate the material, emotional and practical challenges of adulthood; an adulthood which has failed to deliver on any of the promises of their youth.

Through the use of 16mm portraits, the film directly invites the viewer into this dynamic of bystander and witness; it asks us to look at those we love, to see the realities and textures of their lives, to consider the ways in which we might be complicit in making or unmaking their worlds, to look at the world we have collectively made and ask – is this enough?

The image of the collapsing towers conveys something about precarity and the terrible inequality in terms of the housing crisis, how much of the economy is based in property ownership, the lack of job and housing security. Keiran’s dedication at the end of the novel is wonderful – I find it really moving – and that’s why we put in at the end of the film. Those resources that might seem small and cost relatively little, are actually essential, potentially life changing.

“Thank you to the people, places and policies that sustained me as a kid; to
Birmingham, to the schools and the teachers and the libraries, to the mates and the
corner shops and the youth clubs, the Sunday league teams, community centres, EMA
grants and free lunches, the union settlements, the marches, the scholarships and the
social security payments . . . to public luxury . . . which is the only luxury that matters.”
Keiran Goddard.

Production:
Moonspun Films Ltd
https://www.moonspunfilms.com/

World Sales:
Charades
https://www.charades.eu/