In the Giant's garden in Oscar Wilde's children's story The Selfish Giant, it is always winter. Having built a wall to keep children from playing in his garden, there are no longer any peach trees, flowers, or birds, only perpetual hail and snow. Spring has forgotten this garden as it also seems to have forgotten the industrial town of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, the setting for Clio Barnard's authentic and visceral The Selfish Giant. Nominated for a BAFTA award for Best British Film of 2013, The Selfish Giant is in the tradition of Ken Loach, Shane Meadows and others, films of social realism that show the world there is more to merry old England than Stratford-on-Avon and Westminster Abbey.

Though the film is about economic and social dysfunction, it is not all grim. Even in the metallic gray of the rotting town as captured by cinematographer Mike Eley, scenes of horses grazing in a tranquil field, oblivious to the surrounding train tracks and power lines, add a touch of timeless beauty. The real standout, however, are the remarkably convincing performances of Arbor (Conner Chapman) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas),13-year-old best friends whose connection is born out of their desperate need for affection. Arbor, a pint-sized, hyperactive, sharp-tongued ADHD sufferer, lives with his mother (Rebecca Manley) and older brother (Elliott Tittensor) who sells his A.D.H.D. medication to pay off his drug debts. His father is nowhere to be seen.

"They sleep on the living room sofas but are better off than Swifty who lives with his eight siblings in a home lacking in the means to support them. Swifty's mother played by Siobhan Finneran, is caring, though she is intimidated by her overbearing husband (Steve Evets) who supports the family by renting furniture from discount stores and selling them for cash at inflated prices." Struggling to keep his aggressive behavior in check, Arbor relies on the heavy-set Swifty, a kinder gentler soul with a love for horses to calm him down. Banned from school as a result of fighting to defend themselves against bullies, the boys use a horse and cart to scavenge scrap metal, pots and pans, as well as copper cabling from telecom, railway, and power utilities.

To earn money to help support their families, they sell the scrap to an exploitative but fatherly local junk dealer (Sean Gilder),incongruously called Kitten but given to bursts of anger. In one of the visual highlights of the film, an illegal harness drag race is run on a major highway with serious money at stake. Recognizing Swifty's way with horses, Kitten offers to let him ride one of his horses in the next race. Feeling his friend drifting away from him, Arbor concocts a potentially lucrative plan to steal or collect electrical power cables, but the adventure leads to unforeseen consequences. Much of the dialogue without subtitles is indecipherable due to the heavy Yorkshire accents, but consists mostly of non-stop swearing anyway.

What does come through loud and clear, however, without the need for subtitles is the closeness of the boys' friendship. Although they have different temperaments, they are connected by a struggle for survival and a drive to preserve whatever joy is left in their childhood. There are definitely economic and political overtones in The Selfish Giant, yet it is not about politics or even selfishness, in spite of the title. It is a film with a human element at its core and we care about the characters as Barnard obviously does as well. According to the director, the film "is about what we have lost…and what we need to value and hold on to." It is also a film about the resilience of two boys determined to avoid becoming objects like the discarded scrap they collect.

One of the commentators has hit the nail on the head when they called this movie depressing. It's ostensibly based on an Oscar Wilde story, although given that the source material is a fairy tale for children, the similarities are so few that you can't really work out the connection.

Instead this is a working class tale of petty crime and even pettier characters. The main characters are a couple of tearaway kids who decide to make a living by stealing scrap metal and selling it to the local dealer. The problem with this film is that the entire cast is unsympathetic, and the dialogue is poorly written, substituting expletives for insight.

I don't mind low budget films with depressing backdrops - I really enjoyed the Irish tragi-comedy ADAM & PAUL, for example - but this really takes the biscuit, especially when you have no real reason to watch. And that ending is so heavily signposted throughout that it doesn't come as a surprise at all.

Tiny Arbor Fenton (Conner Chapman) has a big bark. His best friend Swifty (Shaun Thomas) is big and quiet. Both boys are from dysfunctional families. At the railyards, they witness Mick steal cable and nick it for themselves. They sell it to the local scrap dealer Kitten (Sean Gilder). The boys get suspended from school after Swifty gets picked on and Arbor starts the fight. They scrounge for scraps and even steals. Kitten has horses that he races in illegal road races. Swifty is good with horses and Kitten wants him to race. Arbor is left out. Arbor keeps pushing to steal live high voltage cable. Events unfold leading to tragic results.

The setting is glum. The boys are terrific. It's a dark story that can't be anything other than resulting in tragedy. This is a very good indie. I just didn't like the horse part of the movie. It feels unreal and out of place from the rest of the movie. The race feels fake. This is a movie that survives by its gritty realism. The horse racing aspect takes me out of the movie. The relationship between the boys is deep. It's a good little indie.