Days of the Bagnold Summer

A warm and witty graphic novel adaptation about a single librarian trying to reconnect with her introverted, metalhead teenage son.

Days of the Bagnold Summer sweetly draws you into the wobbly relationship between well-intentioned single librarian Sue Bagnold and her black-clad teenage son Daniel, who’d rather listen to Metallica than his mother. Daniel was meant to spend the summer in Florida visiting his dad, but is now stuck with Mum following the trip’s cancellation.

Simon Bird’s directorial debut is a funny, charming and wince-inducingly accurate adaptation of Joff Winterhart’s graphic novel, with a soundtrack by Belle & Sebastian. The film boasts supporting turns by Rob Brydon and Alice Lowe, but belongs to its two leads. Long-suffering Sue is sympathetically portrayed by Monica Dolan, with Earl Cave’s Daniel a suitably lank-haired, pale-skinned picture of adolescent metalhead angst.