We’re in the middle of a heat wave in Fenland, England. Goob Taylor has spent each of his sixteen summers helping his Mum run the transport cafe and harvest the surrounding pumpkin fields. When his Mum shacks up with swarthy stock car driving supremo and ladies’ man Gene Womack, Goob becomes an unwelcome side thought. However Goob’s world turns when exotic pumpkin picker Eva arrives. Fuelled by her flirtatious comments, Goob dreams of better things.
The increasing tension between man and boy pushes his mother into choosing between them, a choice devastating to Goob but the spur to becoming his own man.
“That’s what the film is about”, writer-director Guy Myhill sums up, “when Goob realises the love his Mum has for her boyfriend is greater than the love she has for him. He has to leave.”
Immersed in the popular, rowdy Norfolk stock car racing scene in his documentary work, and intrigued by the migrant crop pickers who are a familiar sight in the heavily-agricultural county, Myhill knew he wanted both elements to figure in a down-to-earth picture of life there.
“I’d made a documentary for Channel 4 about stock car racing and that world excited me. I knew the possibilities the racetrack at Swaffham offered, you know the dirty roar of thunder, it’s in my top ten of favourite Norfolk locations.
And just down the road from the track was the iconic diner, for years I’d wanted to feature it. So I began to weave a narrative around both these two hot spots, capitalising too, on the surrounding flatlands.
In the process Norfolk itself emerges as a character, its landscapes and people are central in The Goob’s potent atmosphere.”
THE GOOB will screen in the first feature competition at this year's London Film Festival on 10th, 12th and 15th October. In general release next year.
