Pin Cushion starts in Indie 101 territory. Mother and daughter, the mother in odd shoes, the daughter in a pink knitted bobble hat, are driving in a camper van carrying a bird cage. It could be the opening of any Sundance Audience Favourite, but happily writer-director Deborah Haywood’s feature debut charts a course from whimsy to something more interesting, challenging and ultimately dark. Anchored by great performances from Joanna Scanlan and Lily Newmark, Pin Cushion emerges as both a funny, entertaining, complex portrayal of female relationships (both familial and friendships), and a frightening reminder of how bullying can seep from the playground into adulthood in insidious ways.
The mother and daughter moving to a new Northern town are Lyn (Scanlan) and Iona (Newmark). Lyn is disabled and friendless, obsessed with her budgie, her ceramic knick-knacks and keeping her teen daughter in a perpetually childish state (they share a bed). It’s a relationship that is tested when Iona meets nice boy Daz (Loris Scarpa) and becomes inducted into her new school’s ‘Mean Girls’ clique, dominated by the vicious Keely (Cordy-Nice). With Lyn becoming lonelier — she gets into a running argument with neighbour Belinda (Cresswell) over a borrowed ladder — the once tight unit is starting to fracture.
Hayward punctuates Iona and Lyn’s quietly painful existence — they are constantly lying to each other about the fullness of their lives — with sparkly flights of fantasy (Nadine Coyle cameos as Iona’s dream air hostess mum). Imaginative and inventive as these are, Hayward’s grip occasionally falters, the surfeit of stylisation blunting the film’s pricklier elements and selling short the characters’ inner depths and vulnerabilities. Still, the eccentric aesthetic is impressive, from Nicola Daley’s dreamy cinematography (extra woozy during Iona’s discovery of self-pleasure), to production designer Francesca Massariol’s hand-crafted interior design, to Natalie Holt’s eclectic, effective score. Kudos, too, to casting director Kharmel Cochrane for mounting such a great line-up of fresh young talent.
Joanna Scanlan is one of those actors who is good in everything (see The Thick Of It, The Invisible Woman) and shines here in a rare lead role. She makes Lyn’s loneliness and pain tangible beneath the hand-knitted jumpers — the moment she is ousted from a women’s friendship group (by Peep Show’s Isy Suttie) just for being different is especially heartbreaking. Newmark is equally terrific, perfectly etching a girl discovering the sugar rush of first kisses and lip gloss where there has previously been ChapSticks, and becoming a cool kid but deep down knowing she doesn’t really fit in. At one point, when Lyn cradles Iona, the image resembles a Derbyshire version of Brian De Palma’s Carrie, Newmark’s fragile pale features and shock of ginger hair adding to the Sissy Spacek vibe. Together the pair ensure a potentially quirky 82 minutes lands with real feeling.
