Nil by Mouth (film)

1997 film by Gary Oldman

Nil by Mouth

Theatrical release poster

Directed by| Gary Oldman
Written by| Gary Oldman
Produced by| Gary Oldman
Douglas Urbanski
Luc Besson
Starring|

* Kathy Burke
* Charlie Creed-Miles
* Laila Morse
* Ray Winstone
* Chrissie Cotterill
* Jamie Foreman
* Jon Morrison
* Steve Sweeney

Cinematography| Ron Fortunato
Edited by| Brad Fuller
Music by| Eric Clapton

Production
companies

EuropaCorp
SE8 GROUP

Distributed by| 20th Century Fox
(United Kingdom and Ireland)
ARP Sélection
(France)

Release dates

* 8 May 1997 (1997-05-08) (Cannes)
* 10 October 1997 (1997-10-10) (UK)
* 5 November 1997 (1997-11-05) (France)

Running time

| 128 minutes[1]
Countries| United Kingdom
France
Language| English
Budget| $9 million[2]
Box office| $266,130[2] (US only)

Nil by Mouth is a 1997 drama film written, produced and directed by Gary Oldman. His debut as a filmmaker, it portrays the life of a dysfunctional, working-class family in South East London, partly inspired by Oldman's own upbringing. It stars Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles, Laila Morse and Edna Doré. The score was composed by Eric Clapton.

The film was co-produced by Luc Besson's company EuropaCorp, and was distributed in the United Kingdom by 20th Century Fox under Fox Searchlight Pictures. It premiered at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, where Kathy Burke won the Best Actress Award. It was well-received by critics and was nominated for four BAFTA Awards, winning Best British Film and Best Original Screenplay.

In 1999, the film was ranked by the British Film Institute's on its list of Top 100 British films.[3]

## Plot

[edit]

In a working-class part of South East London live Raymond; his wife, Valerie; little daughter Michelle; brother-in-law, Billy; mother-in-law, Janet; and grandmother-in-law, Kathy. Billy is a drug addict. He hangs out with his heroin-addict friends and they shoot up together. The family is dysfunctional, mostly because of Raymond's fiery temper and violent outbursts. When Valerie gets pregnant again, she continues to smoke and drink. One night, they score drugs and Billy uses Ray's cocaine. Ray is livid and bites Billy's nose and throws him out of the flat. Billy breaks back in and steals a family heirloom to pay for his drug habit.

Valerie goes out on the town, and when Ray sees an attractive male friend of hers, he flies into a jealous rage, ordering her out of the pub and into the car. Back home, he accuses her of sleeping with the male friend, and brutalizes her severely, causing her to miscarry. He tries to win her back, but she leaves him and prepares to start a new life without him. In an alcohol-fuelled rage, he angrily tears their flat apart. He tells Mark, his friend, that the reason for his horrible behavior is his own abusive father, who was the same way with him and his mother. Later, he tries to reconcile with Valerie, but she is outraged, and says that when she reaches 70, she wants to look back on this part of her life, as she is now 30, as a time when she had some fun. What she has, instead, is people feeling sorry for her.

Valerie does not want to return to Ray, pointing out they have not got a home to go back to because he has smashed it all up. She will try to find someone to be with who will love her and treat her kindly. Ray goes to see Valerie and asks her if she still loves him.

Ray and Valerie are eventually back together again, and Ray has fixed up the flat. Ray speaks as crudely as ever, but begins to restrain himself from his usual angry outbursts. Billy and his friend Danny rob a man to support their drug habit, and wind up going to prison. This not only reunites Ray with Valerie, but also reunites the whole family. They go off to visit Billy.

## Cast

[edit]

* Ray Winstone as Raymond ("Ray")
* Kathy Burke as Valerie ("Val")
* Charlie Creed-Miles as Billy
* Laila Morse as Janet
* Edna Doré as Kath
* Chrissie Cotterill as Paula
* Jon Morrison as Angus
* Jamie Foreman as Mark
* Steve Sweeney as Danny

## Production

[edit]

This was EuropaCorp's first official production.

The film depicts the environment Oldman witnessed growing up on a council estate in South East London. Oldman's sister Laila Morse plays Janet and his mother voices a song in the film. The title is a UK medical instruction (literally "nothing by mouth"), meaning that a patient must not take food or water.

The score was composed by Eric Clapton.[4]

The film features the word "cunt" 82 times, more than any other film in history. It also features 428 uses of the word "fuck" and its derivatives,[5] more than any film at the time until Summer of Sam surpassed it two years later, but it remains the highest-ranked (as of 2019) with regards to the average number of utterances per minute of running time, with 3.34 / min (leaving aside Swearnet: The Movie, which is more of a concept movie revolving around that very theme, and Fuck, a documentary about the word in question).[citation needed]

20th Century Fox picked up distribution rights to the film in the United Kingdom. Sony Pictures Classics acquired the North American and some foreign distribution rights to the film with Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International releasing the film in all other territories.

## Reception

[edit]

The film received generally positive reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 79% of 33 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Foul-mouthed and unrelentingly bleak, Nil by Mouth is a prickly viewing experience that nevertheless impresses with its authentic blue collar angst and ferocious performances."[6] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 76 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[7]

Roger Ebert awarded the film 3.5 out of 4, writing: "The film's portrait of street life in South London is unflinching and observant."[8] Reviewing the film for its 25th anniversary, the Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw gave it five out of five, praising its performances and "pure invention, energy and seriousness".[4]

The film grossed £142,200 ($230,364) from 61 screens in its opening weekend in the United Kingdom, placing 10th at the UK box office.[9][10] It grossed a total of $266,130 from 18 theatres in the United States and Canada.[2]

### Awards and nominations

[edit]

Institution  | Year  | Category  | Nominee  | Result

|
|
|
|

British Academy Film Awards | 1997  | Best British Film | Luc Besson, Gary Oldman, Douglas Urbanski | Won
Best Original Screenplay | Gary Oldman  | Won
Best Actor in a Leading Role | Ray Winstone | Nominated
Best Actress in a Leading Role | Kathy Burke | Nominated
British Independent Film Awards | 1998  | Best British Independent Film | Gary Oldman  | Nominated
Best Director | Nominated
Best Actor | Ray Winstone  | Won
Best Actress | Kathy Burke  | Won
Best Screenplay | Gary Oldman  | Nominated
Most Promising Newcomer in any Category  | Laila Morse | Won
Cannes Film Festival[11] | 1997 | Palme d'Or | —  | Nominated
Best Actress | Kathy Burke  | Won
Camerimage | 1997  | Golden Frog  | Ron Fortunato | Nominated
Edinburgh International Film Festival | 1997  | Channel 4 Director's Award  | Gary Oldman  | Won
Empire Awards | 1998  | Best Debut  | Gary Oldman  | Won
European Film Awards | 1997  | Best Cinematographer  | Ron Fortunato  | Nominated
Royal Variety Club of Great Britain[12] | 1997  | Best Film Actress  | Kathy Burke  | Won

### Best-of lists

[edit]

In 1999, the film was ranked by the British Film Institute's on its list of Top 100 British films.[3]

In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics for Time Out ranked the film the 21st-best British film.[13]

## See also

[edit]

* BFI Top 100 British films

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Nil by Mouth (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 22 July 1997. Archived from the original on 19 February 2015. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
2. ^ a b c "Nil by Mouth (1997)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
3. ^ a b "BBC News | Entertainment | Best 100 British films - full list". news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
4. ^ a b Bradshaw, Peter (3 November 2022). "Nil by Mouth review – Gary Oldman's overwhelming study of family violence". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
5. ^ "Nil By Mouht". Screenit.com. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
6. ^ "Nil by Mouth". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
7. ^ "Nil by Mouth Reviews". www.metacritic.com. Retrieved 11 June 2025.
8. ^ Ebert, Roger (6 March 1998). "Nil by Mouth". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 1 January 2021.
9. ^ Scott, Mary (24 October 1997). "Wilde King". Screen International. p. 27.
10. ^ "UK Top 15". Screen International. 17 October 1997. p. 46.
11. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Nil by Mouth". Festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 23 September 2009.
12. ^ "Kathy Burke .co.uk – Awards". Kathyburke.co.uk. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
13. ^ "The 100 best British films". Timeout.com. Retrieved 23 September 2017.

## External links

[edit]

* Nil by Mouth at IMDb
* Screenonline: Nil by Mouth
* Review by Eye for Film, of Nil by Mouth

Wikiquote has quotations related to Nil by Mouth.

* v
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Luc Besson

* Filmography

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* Le Dernier Combat (1983)
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* The Fifth Element (1997)
* The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
* Angel-A (2005)
* Arthur and the Minimoys (2006)
* Arthur and the Revenge of Maltazard (2009)
* Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds (2010)
* The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)
* The Lady (2011)
* The Family (2013)
* Lucy (2014)
* Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
* Anna (2019)
* Dogman (2023)
* June and John (2025)
* Dracula: A Love Tale (TBA)

|

Written|

* Kamikaze (1986)
* Taxi (1998)
* Taxi 2 (2000)
* The Dancer (2000)
* Kiss of the Dragon (2001)
* Wasabi (2001)
* Yamakasi (2001)
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* Taxi 4 (2007)
* Taken (2008)
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* From Paris with Love (2010)
* Colombiana (2011)
* Lockout (2012)
* Taken 2 (2012)
* 3 Days to Kill (2014)
* Brick Mansions (2014)
* Taken 3 (2015)
* The Transporter Refueled (2015)
* The Warriors Gate (2016)
* Renegades (2017)
* Arthur, malédiction (2022)
* Weekend in Taipei (2024)

Produced|

* Cold Moon (1991)
* Nil by Mouth (1997)
* Chaos and Desire (2002)
* Les Côtelettes (2003)
* Taxi (2004)
* The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)
* Love and Other Disasters (2006)
* Nuovomondo (2006)
* Tell No One (2006)
* The Secret (2007)
* Hitman (2007)
* Taken (2008)
* Home (2009)
* Staten Island (2009)
* 22 Bullets (2010)
* The Source (2011)
* A Monster in Paris (2011)
* Collision (2013)
* Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart (2013)
* The Homesman (2014)
* Taxi 5 (2018)

TV series|

* Transporter: The Series (2012–2014)
* No Limit (2012–2015)
* Taxi Brooklyn (2014)
* Taken (2017–2018)

Books|

* Arthur series (2002–2005)

See also|

* EuropaCorp
* Virginie Besson-Silla

* v
* t
* e

BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Film

1947–1967|

* Odd Man Out (1947)
* The Fallen Idol (1948)
* The Third Man (1949)
* The Blue Lamp (1950)
* The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
* The Sound Barrier (1952)
* Genevieve (1953)
* Hobson's Choice (1954)
* Richard III (1955)
* Reach for the Sky (1956)
* The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
* Room at the Top (1958)
* Sapphire (1959)
* Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)
* A Taste of Honey (1961)
* Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
* Tom Jones (1963)
* Dr. Strangelove (1964)
* The Ipcress File (1965)
* The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1966)
* A Man for All Seasons (1967)

1992–present|

* The Crying Game (1992)
* Shadowlands (1993)
* Shallow Grave (1994)
* The Madness of King George (1995)
* Secrets & Lies (1996)
* Nil by Mouth (1997)
* Elizabeth (1998)
* East Is East (1999)
* Billy Elliot (2000)
* Gosford Park (2001)
* The Warrior (2002)
* Touching the Void (2003)
* My Summer of Love (2004)
* Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
* The Last King of Scotland (2006)
* This Is England (2007)
* Man on Wire (2008)
* Fish Tank (2009)
* The King's Speech (2010)
* Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
* Skyfall (2012)
* Gravity (2013)
* The Theory of Everything (2014)
* Brooklyn (2015)
* I, Daniel Blake (2016)
* Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
* The Favourite (2018)
* 1917 (2019)
* Promising Young Woman (2020)
* Belfast (2021)
* The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
* The Zone of Interest (2023)
* Conclave (2024)

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF

National|

* Germany

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