Following – 1998 | 70 mins | Thriller | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Following is a flawed but intriguing and very distinctive debut from the 29-year-old British director Christopher Nolan. Shot in black and white, it is about Bill (Jeremy Theobald), a scruffy would-be writer who just decides to follow people around at random and experience their lives vicariously. One of his marks is a suave, well-dressed burglar who invites him to join him on a day’s work and experience the real hardcore thrill of intrusion and voyeurism.

These are the real delights of burglary, and the connoisseurship and wit with which these pleasures are laid out for us – together with the disquieting, rather Pinteresque dialogue – makes this unusual little film a very interesting prospect. Unfortunately, Following is almost ruined by a disjointed narrative structure: a pointless and pretentious shuffling up of scenes which adds nothing at all to the film and is just confusing. But Following is very original, no question, with a pleasingly occult sense of the city’s hidden, deserted spaces. Christopher Nolan, credited for the screenplay and cinematography too, is a coming man.