London Betty

• Directed By: Thomas Edward Seymour
• Written By: Thomas Edward Seymour
• Country: USA
• Released: 2009
• Running Time: 80 minutes
• Links: Halemanor Films
• Comedy, Reviews

London Betty is the story of three friends. Billy (Thomas Edward Seymour) and Volgo (Russ Russo) are not the most competent thieves in the world. Their best friend, Jess (Margaret Rose Champagne) is a prostitute. These three characters live small lives in the small all-American of Pharisee and, while none of them is particularly satisfied with their lot, they do at least have each other.

Into their lives come Betty (Nicole Lewis) who has moved from London to follow her ambition of becoming a top journalist. Unfortunately for Betty, the job she has landed is working for the Pharisee Gazette, the smallest of small town papers, under an agoraphobic editor (Daniel von Bargen) who refuses to meet her.

Inevitably enough, Betty becomes a victim of Billy’s petty thieving and, when he claims the reward for her stolen rabbit, Betty smells a story and starts to follow him. In doing so, she stumbles across a much bigger story of small-town corruption involving the oily Mayor Plumb (Dick Boland), and so begins an increasingly funny comedy of errors.

Writer/director, Thomas Edward Seymour is one half of the team behind Bikini Bloodbath Car Wash and, although London Betty has a similar sense of humour it is a very different film, and a much funnier one. Obviously there is a genre difference, but what really sets these two films apart is that the characters this time around are a lot more interesting, especially in the case of Betty. While the humour is often absurd, the characters and the plot are both interesting and engaging enough to keep you wanting to know how things will pan out.

It helps, of course, that the acting pretty solid throughout. Nicole Lewis, however, is outstanding. Not only is her performance both thoroughly engaging and utterly believable, but she also brings a real depth to her character that effectively anchors the film and prevents the stream of jokes from descending into random silliness.

Thomas Edward Seymour is an able scriptwriter and one that is rapidly improving from film to film, and London Betty is a huge step forward. There is still a fair bit of silliness going on, but everything hangs together a lot more nicely this time around. The characters are well-rounded, believable and genuinely interesting and the film manages a warm-hearted, and surprisingly moving, pay-off which effectively underlines its theme of friendship.

With London Betty, Seymour has managed to tighten up both his script and characterisation without sacrificing his frenetic joke-per-minute pacing. The fact that he’s also managed to find a cast – and a lead – that bring this all brilliantly to life makes this a film that really is worth tracking down.