Sweet Sixteen (2002) on Netflix
Liam, a teenager in Greenock, waits for his mother Jean to leave prison, where she serves time for a crime her boyfriend Stan committed. He hopes to buy them a home.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb7.4/1015,286 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes97%
Trailer
Plot summary
Liam has left school and roams Greenock with his friends, among them Pinball. They earn money selling untaxed cigarettes in a pub. His mother, Jean, is finishing a prison sentence for a crime committed by her boyfriend Stan, who deals drugs with Liam's grandfather Rab, and she is due out in a few weeks, around Liam's sixteenth birthday. When Stan and Rab try to make him carry drugs to Jean on a prison visit, he refuses, is beaten by Stan and turned out of Rab's flat. He moves in with Chantelle, his older sister, in the nearby town of Port Glasgow, and she tells him to do something constructive. On a drive along the coast with Pinball and Chantelle's son Calum, Liam spots a caravan for sale.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sweet Sixteen (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The British Board of Film Classification gave Sweet Sixteen an 18 certificate because of the language, counting 313 uses of "fuck" and about 20 of "cunt", which barred viewers under 18 in Britain and Spain.
- Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty protested the British 18 certificate in The Guardian, and Laverty called it "censorship" and "class prejudice" because many of the Scots he interviewed for the screenplay were under 18 and so could not see the film.
- Screenings of Sweet Sixteen were shown under a 15 certificate in Inverclyde, where star Martin Compston was born and where the film was shot.
- The BBFC stood by its 18 certificate and said most of the publicity around Sweet Sixteen was "mostly generated by the disgruntled film-maker".
