8 Minutes Idle

The makers of 8 Minutes Idle have a kickstarter campaign to thank for the cinema release of their offbeat comedy, which was made in 2012 but has sat on the shelf since. It's a charming (perhaps knowingly so) low-budget romcom, adapted from his novel of the same title by Matt Thorne with Nicholas Blincoe, and directed with a light touch by Mark Simon Hewis.

It covers an awful but life-changing week in the life of Dan (the ever wonderful Tom Hughes, a huge star in the making), a young call-centre worker in Bristol who's drifting through life by way of emotional inertia. On Monday morning his mum (Pippa Haywood, cranking up the Mommie Dearest routine) throws him - and his ginger cat - out of the family home when she thinks he has sided with his ne'er-do-well dad (Paul Kaye, going for obvious laughs), who has scarpered after stealing her winning lottery ticket. (By comic coincidence the National Lottery part-funded 8 Minutes Idle.)

Thorne wrote his novel after working in a call centre, and much of this film rings true

Things go from bad to worse as, penniless, he starts sleeping in the office stationery cupboard with just his cat for company. Then his termagant boss Alice (Montserrat Lombard) demands that team-leader Dan sack one of his colleagues - who has gone more than eight minutes without taking a call - because savings have to be made. Or so she says: is there another reason?

We soon learn that Dan, a gentle soul who can't seem to find his way out of the mess he's in, is in sway to three women – his colleague Teri (Ophelia Lovibond, pictured below), the woman he's hopelessly in love with but who has a boyfriend, another co-worker, Adrienne (Antonia Thomas), to whom he owes money, and Alice.

The comedy comes from the banter-filled interaction between Dan and his colleagues and the pettiness of office politics. The group of twentysomethings carve out some joy in their soul-destroying work by pranking callers - keeping them on the line for 40 minutes and then telling them it's a premium-charge number - and going out for club nights together to get rat-arsed. And there's farce in his attempts to extricate Teri from the madhouse she shares with a bunch of party-animal medics. When she lands up in hospital and is being treated by one of them, he's appalled. “He's a drunken pervert,” Dan cries out in alarm. “Show me a doctor who isn't,” comes the instant rejoinder from a nurse.

Thorne wrote his novel after working in a call centre upon leaving university, and much of this film rings true. Not just the tight bonds that form between colleagues but also the exuberant drug-taking, casual sex and I'm going to-live-for-ever hedonism of youth before the reality of settled relationships, career and planning for the future kicks in.

What happens between Dan and Teri is entirely predictable, and the writers try to disguise this by heightening one or two situations and characters, but they're just a little too off-whack to be believable. Yet there's much to enjoy. The cartoon flash cards with wittily drawn captions that delineate days of the week are wonderfully rude, Mike Smith's soundtrack is kicking and all the sparky young leads are a delight - and if you're looking for the perfect first-date movie this Valentine's weekend, this is it.

Overleaf: watch the trailer to 8 Minutes Idle