--- title: "Coming Down the Mountain" year: 2007 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/coming-down-the-mountain" fi1m_id: "coming-down-the-mountain" imdb_id: "tt0974544" tmdb_id: 56809 wikidata_id: "Q5151918" fi1m_score: 77 critics_reviews: 1 published: "2026-10-07T14:51:08.384421+00:00" updated: "2026-10-07T14:51:53.135909+00:00" region: "LT" 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." --- # Coming Down the Mountain (2007) Directed by Julie Anne Robinson · 1h 20m · Drama ## Identity Coming Down the Mountain - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/coming-down-the-mountain - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** coming-down-the-mountain - **IMDb ID:** tt0974544 - **TMDB ID:** 56809 - **Wikidata ID:** Q5151918 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0974544/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/56809, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5151918 **Fi1m score: 77** · Critics: 1 of 6 reviews so far *In a sentence:* The most likeable person in the film is the one the narrator wants dead, and he knows it > Mark Haddon’s drama about a teenager who wants his brother with Down’s syndrome dead is funnier and kinder than that sounds, and Tommy Jessop is the best thing in it. The writing underlines itself in places, and the ending is neater than the setup deserves. ## Synopsis David Philips (Nicholas Hoult) is a teenager who has decided to kill his younger brother. He tells us so in the first minute. Ben (Tommy Jessop) has Down’s syndrome, and as far as David can see his parents, Sheila (Julia Ford) and John (Neil Dudgeon), have built the household around him: every holiday, every argument, every decision comes back to what Ben needs. At school David has a mate in Rob (Josh Cohen) and would like to impress Gail (Emer Kenny), and neither is much help with a brother who follows him about and settles in everywhere faster than he does. The resentment hardens into a plan, and the first act is David working out, in a voiceover he thinks is cleverer than it is, how he might get away with it. ## Review David Philips (Nicholas Hoult) is a teenager, and he hates his brother. He says so in the first minute, in a voiceover so level that it takes a moment to register he has just described a murder plan. Ben (Tommy Jessop) has Down’s syndrome, and the Philips household runs on his timetable: the school, the holidays, the arguments, every decision that comes back to what Ben needs. Mark Haddon writes from the other side of the bedroom wall, from the brother nobody is making allowances for, and the result is worth an evening of anyone who grew up with a sibling. The reason is Jessop. It would have been easy, and it has been done often enough, to make Ben a saint who exists to teach his brother a lesson. Jessop plays him as a person who knows exactly how annoying he is being and is enjoying it. He has the timing of a comic who has been at it for years: he lets a pause run until Hoult cracks, and then says the mild thing anyway. We laughed, and then we noticed we were laughing with Ben at David, which is the reverse of what the opening promised and is the whole point. Hoult has the harder job. David has to be unpleasant for most of 80 minutes and keep us with him, and Hoult does it by never asking for sympathy. He plays a boy nobody is looking at, and he makes the self-pity accurate rather than endearing. The narration could have sunk it. Haddon gives David lines that are cleverer than a boy his age would manage, and once or twice the voiceover explains a feeling the face has already shown. Mostly it works, because the gap between what David says and what we can see is where the comedy lives. Julie Anne Robinson directs plainly, and plain is right. Danny Cohen shoots the family house in flat daylight, with the clutter of a home that has stopped tidying for anyone’s benefit, and saves anything handsome for outside, which is the correct order. Grenville Horner’s design gives Ben a bedroom that is unmistakably his and David one that could belong to anybody. Rob Lane’s score stays out of the kitchen and the classroom and comes in when the film leaves the house, and Anthony Combes cuts it without a wasted scene. Nothing here draws attention to itself. The parents are less well served. Julia Ford’s Sheila and Neil Dudgeon’s John are played with care, especially by Ford, whose tiredness is in her shoulders before it is in her lines, but Haddon has written them as two people who made a decision years ago and stopped discussing it, and the film never gets them alone together long enough to find out what the decision cost. The school, with Rob (Josh Cohen) as David’s friend and Gail (Emer Kenny) as the girl he would like to impress, is a sketch rather than a world. Those scenes play like a series that was never commissioned. We will say nothing about the last act except that it is the one stretch where the film arrives somewhere we could have predicted. Haddon spends an hour refusing the obvious version of this story, and then the ending is a little tidier than the hour deserved. It is not a cheat. It is a drama finishing on time. What stayed with us is smaller than the ending. The scenes we keep returning to are the ones where David talks about Ben in front of him and Jessop simply listens, with a flicker in the face of someone who has heard every word and decided not to mind. That moved us more than any speech in the film. Watch it with a teenager if you have one to hand. They will recognise David well before you do, and they will not thank you for pointing it out. *Fi1m score 77, published 7 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Coming Down the Mountain worth watching?** *Coming Down the Mountain* is worth watching for anyone who grew up with a sibling, and we scored it 77. Tommy Jessop is the best thing in it, playing a brother who knows exactly how annoying he is being and enjoys it, and Nicholas Hoult keeps an unpleasant boy watchable without asking for sympathy. The parents are underwritten and the ending is tidier than the hour before it deserves. **How long is Coming Down the Mountain, and what is it rated?** *Coming Down the Mountain* runs 1h 20m. It is a drama film. **Where can I watch Coming Down the Mountain in Lithuania?** *Coming Down the Mountain* is not on any streaming or rental service in Lithuania at the moment. It is available in 1 other country; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How does Coming Down the Mountain compare to Submarine?** *Coming Down the Mountain* and [*Submarine*](https://film.one/film/submarine) both have a teenager narrating his life as if it were cleverer than it is, and both are funny. Haddon's film is the plainer and shorter, with a family at its centre rather than a romance, and Jessop gives it a comic performance *Submarine* has nothing to match. Ayoade's film is the more stylish and works harder at being clever, which suits anyone who enjoys the effort. ### Reviews we read (1) - **The Guardian**, Sam Wollaston (80/100, inferred): Wollaston calls the drama very good, original, interesting and brave. He praises its warm, witty treatment of Down’s syndrome and the performances of Tommy Jessop and Nicholas Hoult. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/sep/03/lastnightstvcomingdownthe) ## Details - **Director:** Julie Anne Robinson - **Director:** Julie Anne Robinson - **Writer:** Mark Haddon - **Cinematography:** Danny Cohen - **Editor:** Anthony Combes - **Music:** Rob Lane - **Production design:** Grenville Horner - **Costume design:** Theresa Rymer - **Producer:** Roanna Benn - **Cast:** Nicholas Hoult as David Philips; Tommy Jessop as Ben Philips; Julia Ford as Sheila Philips; Neil Dudgeon as John Philips; Emer Kenny as Gail; Katie Griffiths as Alice; Brendan Heaney as Gary Jeavons; Josh Cohen as Rob - **Runtime:** 1h 20m - **First release (the UK):** 16 August 2007 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in Lithuania Not streaming, renting or buying in Lithuania at the last check. Also available in: GB. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Eighth Day* (1996): A Belgian salesman and a man with Down’s syndrome on the road; sentimental, but Pascal Duquenne is remarkable. - *Yo, también* (2009): Spanish drama about a graduate with Down’s syndrome in love; frank about sex, and about loneliness. - *What's Eating Gilbert Grape* (1993): Another older brother who wants out; DiCaprio’s Arnie is the heart and the trap. - *The Peanut Butter Falcon* (2019): Zack Gottsagen runs away to wrestling school; a warm American road film that earns its warmth. - *Submarine* (2010), Fi1m 82: A Welsh teenager narrates his own life as if it were cleverer than it is; it is funny. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/submarine.md) --- © 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/coming-down-the-mountain