--- title: "Cemetery Junction" year: 2010 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/cemetery-junction" fi1m_score: 61 critics_score: 62 critics_reviews: 15 published: "2026-09-18T09:09:42.709898+00:00" updated: "2026-09-18T09:09:53.708770+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Cemetery Junction (2010) Directed by Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant · 1h 34m · MPA R · Drama, Comedy **Fi1m score: 61** · Critics 62 from 15 reviews *In a sentence:* Three lads want out of Reading, and the film has already packed their bags for them > Gervais and Merchant’s first film is a warm, well-acted coming-of-age story set in 1970s Reading, with a fine, quiet Ralph Fiennes. It is also a story you have seen before, told exactly as you expect, and it seems to know it. ## Synopsis Reading in the 1970s. Freddie Taylor (Christian Cooke) has left the factory where his father Len (Ricky Gervais) still works and taken a job selling life assurance for Mr Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes), whose top salesman Mike Ramsay (Matthew Goode) is engaged to Kendrick’s daughter Julie (Felicity Jones), a girl Freddie knew at school. Freddie wants a suit, a car and a way out of town. His mates are less sure. Bruce Pearson (Tom Hughes) works the factory floor, starts fights on Friday nights and wakes up in the cells of Sgt Wyn Davies (Steve Speirs). Snork (Jack Doolan) announces trains at the station and says the wrong thing to every girl he meets. At home, Freddie’s Gran (Anne Reid) says whatever she likes at the dinner table, and his mother (Julia Davis) lets her. ## Review Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who made *The Office* and [*Extras*](https://film.one/tv/extras) by refusing to let anyone learn a lesson, have made a first feature in which everyone learns one. *Cemetery Junction* is set in Reading in the 1970s and follows three young men, one of whom wants to leave. It is warm and well acted, and there is not a scene in it whose ending you could not call from its first line. That is a fair evening and not much more, and 94 minutes is the right length for it. The young cast is the reason to stay. Christian Cooke plays Freddie as a lad who has bought the suit before he has any idea what to do in it. Tom Hughes gives Bruce Pearson a swagger that stops working the instant he is alone with his father (Francis Magee); their kitchen scene is the most honest thing in the film. Jack Doolan’s Snork is the comic engine, a boy who says the worst possible sentence to every girl he meets. Felicity Jones makes Julie clever, restless and a little bored by the man she is about to marry. The older cast is better still. Ralph Fiennes plays Mr Kendrick as a man who has sold life assurance for so long that he no longer sounds as if he wants anything; his short speech on how a man should measure his years is the best-written passage in the film. Matthew Goode’s Mike Ramsay is loud in the pub and quiet in the office, and the film does not need to tell us what he is. Gervais plays Freddie’s father Len saying casually bigoted things over his tea, and Anne Reid as the Gran tops him every time. Here is what got at us. Emily Watson, as Mrs Kendrick, says almost nothing for an hour. Remi Adefarasin keeps her at the edge of the frame, clearing plates, and we stopped noticing her, as the film intends. Then she has one speech to her daughter, about the life she did not have, and it moved us more than we expected, because the film had spent an hour teaching us to look past her. Nothing else in the picture is as well judged. The period is handled with care. Adefarasin shoots the town in late-afternoon browns and golds, so even the factory yard looks like somewhere you might one day be homesick for. Anna Higginson gives the Taylors patterned wallpaper and a telly in the corner, and the Kendricks polished wood and silence. Ruth Myers dresses the lads in flares and wide collars, and Freddie’s new suit sits on Cooke a shade too large, as it should. Tim Atack’s score stays out of the way of the glam-rock records that do most of the work, and Valerio Bonelli cuts the Friday nights briskly, so the film never idles. The trouble is that we have seen it. The lad who wants out, the boss who has forgotten why he wanted in, the fiancé who is not good enough, the friend whose anger has a reason: each arrives on schedule and does what its type does. The Taylor dinner scenes are the television show in flares. And the characters keep announcing the theme, about being somebody and getting out. Around the hour mark we noticed we were calling each scene before it started and waiting to be proved wrong. We were not. The last stretch ties every knot, and we will not say how, except that it involves slow motion and swelling music, and that the film has earned perhaps half the tears it asks for. It has the shape of [*Saturday Night Fever*](https://film.one/film/saturday-night-fever) (1977) and [*Diner*](https://film.one/film/diner) (1982) with less nerve than either: those films were prepared to leave their boys stuck. On television Gervais and Merchant were harder than this on everyone, including the audience. Here they have gone soft, and it suits them less than they think. See it on a Sunday evening with someone who remembers the wallpaper. It carries a 15, for the language and a couple of fights, and it will not trouble anyone. *Fi1m score 61, published 18 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics find Gervais and Merchant’s first film a warm, likeable coming-of-age story, and the praise gathers around the same things: the 1970s Reading setting, recreated with affection, a young cast who make their small-town dreamers easy to root for, and a glam-rock soundtrack that keeps the mood buoyant. Several reviews note that this is a mainstream British film with ambition and a sense of pacing, closer to the American youth picture than to gritty realism, and Eye for Film calls it the strongest thing Gervais has been involved with since The Office. The reservations cluster around the writing. Even admirers call the plot formulaic and the romances too close to the directors’ sitcom; the harsher notices find no wit or insight underneath the nostalgia. The spread is wide, from four stars to outright rejection, and the dissent is largely American: Variety finds it drowning in schmaltz, and The Hollywood Reporter calls it dull and predictable. ### Reviews we read (15) - **Screen Daily** (80/100, inferred): Cemetery Junction is a bitter-sweet and subtly funny coming-of-age tale that marks another string to Gervais and Merchant's bow as an engrossing and thoughtful comedy drama deserving of an audience. The young leads impress and the script balances drama and poignancy while evoking a parochial small-town mentality. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/cemetery-junction/5011923.article) - **Empire**, Ian Freer (70/100, inferred): The film is a refreshing British take on the American coming-of-age youth movie, capturing the fun and warmth of small-town friendships evolving in 1970s Reading. It stands out for its likeable performances, affection for the characters, and engaging rites-of-passage story rather than gritty realism. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/cemetery-junction-review/) - **The AV Club**, Noel Murray (B-): The film draws more from other movies than real experience, resulting in clichés and predictability despite rich period detail and some flashes of comic genius. The critic praises the period detail and occasional comic moments but complains about the reliance on tropes. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/cemetery-junction-1798165708) - **Time Out**, Ben Walters (3 out of 5 stars): The film is a coming-of-age story with emotional resonance that fits the directors' prior work, but it feels formulaic at times and its romances echo their sitcom too closely. It is refreshing to see a mainstream British film with studio-level ambition. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/cemetery-junction) - **Total Film**, Andy Lowe (70/100, inferred): Gervais and Merchant prove themselves as filmmakers with a strong sense of pacing and character in this energetic drama about ambition and friendship in 1970s Reading. It balances sweetness and sharpness while exploring big themes without relying on typical British film clichés. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/cemetery-junction-review/) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (65/100, inferred): Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant deliver a lively, big-hearted Likely Lads-style throwback about working-class lads in 1970s Reading chasing dreams and girls while pulled back by loyalty and hometown inertia. The critic praises the affectionate 70s details and hopeful ending but finds the work sketchy, the tone regressive and sentimentalised, and the film entertaining yet neither fully funny nor sufficiently sharp. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/apr/15/cemetery-junction-ricky-gervais-review) - **The Telegraph** (60/100, inferred): Gervais and Merchant's semi-autobiographical 70s comedy-drama about three young men in Reading is an uneasy blend of personal warmth and formulaic elements, with awkward sitcom tone in places. The critic notes the film's determination to be feel-good ultimately succeeds through its cosy, breezy vibe and glam-rock soundtrack despite lacking novelty. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/7595538/Cemetery-Junction-review.html) - **Evening Standard** (50/100, inferred): The production design and young cast bring the 1970s period to life vividly, creating warmth and care for the characters and their small-town world. However, the story relies too heavily on clichés and lacks originality or fresh insight, making it entertaining but ultimately disappointing. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/all-the-young-dudes-in-cemetery-junction-7419470.html) - **The Hollywood Reporter** (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film dull and predictable, lacking the wit of Gervais and Merchant's TV work, with tired characters and plot lines. They single out the lack of insight into the characters and settings for complaint. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/cemetery-junction-film-review-29493/) - **Variety**, Andrew Barker (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film clichéd and lacking wit or heart, drowning in schmaltz despite good acting and period details. They single out the hackneyed plot resolutions and moralizing as complaints. [Read](https://variety.com/2010/film/reviews/cemetery-junction-1117943306/) - **Eye for Film**, Stephen Carty (4/5): A superb drama-comedy and the best thing Gervais has been involved with since The Office, with assured direction, a strong young cast led by Christian Cooke and Tom Hughes, excellent supporting turns, and a cracking soundtrack. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/cemetery-junction-film-review-by-stephen-carty) - **HeyUGuys**, Jon Lyus (70/100, inferred): The debut feature from Gervais and Merchant is their most touching and accomplished work, a coming-of-age story about three friends in a dead-end town that avoids cloying nostalgia thanks to strong performances and a funny script with social awkwardness. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/review-cemetery-junction/) - **NME**, Stuart McGurk (3.5/5): The critic praises it as a warm, affectionate, sweet-natured, and genuinely uplifting coming-of-age drama that is good-natured, fun, effortless and well-done with visual flair, though it does not reinvent the wheel and edges close to familiar territory. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews-movie-11215-311654) - **Den of Geek**, Michael Leader (3/5): The critic finds it a safe, pleasant, and well-made promising debut that is expertly plotted with a bright, warm tone inviting nostalgia and gentle humour, but notes it is too straightforward, overwrites themes, and lacks distinctiveness or bite. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/cemetery-junction-review-2/) - **The Playlist**, Oliver Lyttelton (C): A half-realized coming-of-age tale that is not an out-and-out comedy but lacks subtlety and substance despite good performances from the young cast and some strong supporting turns; the tone is light and genial but the film feels like a first draft. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-cemetery-junction-is-half-20100416/) ## Details - **Director:** Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant - **Director:** Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant - **Writer:** Stephen Merchant, Ricky Gervais - **Cinematography:** Remi Adefarasin - **Editor:** Valerio Bonelli - **Music:** Tim Atack - **Production design:** Anna Higginson - **Costume design:** Ruth Myers - **Producer:** Sue Baden-Powell, Charlie Hanson - **Cast:** Christian Cooke as Frederick "Freddie" Taylor; Tom Hughes as Bruce Pearson; Jack Doolan as Snork; Felicity Jones as Julie Kendrick; Ralph Fiennes as Mr. Kendrick; Ricky Gervais as Len Taylor; Emily Watson as Mrs. Kendrick; Matthew Goode as Mike Ramsay - **Runtime:** 1h 34m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 17 August 2010 - **Genres:** Drama, Comedy - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYDeHIszUqA ## Where to watch in the US - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Apple TV: buy $12.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-18.* Also available in: AT, AU, CA, CZ, DE, EE, ES, FR, GB, GR, IT, NL, UA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Billy Liar* (1963): The provincial dreamer who cannot quite leave, done with far more bite - *Diner* (1982), Fi1m 84: Young men in a diner putting off adulthood; the template this film borrows — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/diner.md) - *Saturday Night Fever* (1977), Fi1m 78: The other film about a lad, a dead-end job and a dance floor — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/saturday-night-fever.md) - *Gregory's Girl* (1981): Small-town adolescence played gentle and true, without anyone announcing the theme - *Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?* (1973): Two friends, one who left and one who stayed, made in the period itself --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/cemetery-junction