A romantic comedy called Premature is arriving in cinemas next week on a budget so small you could fit it in a Govan tenement’s kitchen cupboard. The studio’s strategy: slap the film in Glasgow’s east end, declare it gritty and authentic, and hope nobody notices the script was written on a napkin during a lunch break.
The logic is transparent. Notting Hill worked because it had money. Four Rooms worked because it had a single location. This film has neither, but it has something better: a postcode that sounds real. Audiences will mistake tight framing and grey skies for artistic vision. The lead actress will do an accent. Critics will call it “unflinching” because someone got rained on during filming.
Why does the film industry believe that swapping Mayfair for Maryhill absolves them of basic screenplay construction? Because it works. A romcom set in a gentrified London neighbourhood requires charm, wit, and a budget that reflects actual human dialogue. A romcom set in an economically deprived area just needs to look concerned. Grit becomes a substitute for craft.
Premature arrives Friday with the kind of budget that wouldn’t cover catering on a real production. The east end didn’t ask to be a cost-cutting measure dressed up as authenticity. But here we are: Glasgow’s working-class neighbourhoods have become the film industry’s discount filter, a way to make nothing look like something by pointing a camera at real deprivation and calling it location scouting.
The film will either tank or become a cult hit. Either way, the studio got what it paid for.