I have thoughts and none of them are in order.

And I can accept and enter into the fantasy mostly when I’m watching TV or whatever but GOD I am begging writers to use locations other than Camden because like, yes, historically the market was a big scene. But it’s owned by an Israeli billionaire now. And the expectations people who don’t live around have of Camden market because of the preceding reputation are always sort of depressing to have to burst when I take them on a canal walk with me.

Hygrade (the company that owns Ethan) has a parent company with investments in London, and when they realise that they can’t permanently recapture him or get him deported, they threaten the locals instead.

I AM FED UP OF LIVING SOMEWHERE EVERYTHING IS CONTROLLED BY FACELESS COMPANIES WE DON’T FIND OUT ABOUT UNTIL THEY CAUSE A CRISIS. Horizon, Macquarie, Arconic, now it’s fucking Palantir and the NHS. Can’t wait to see what new scandal they’ll drop us in.

When I started this project I was mostly just thinking about dirty money in London, but then more shit kept happening. Camden Market is owned by an Israeli billionaire. They want to make Brick Lane a datacentre. There’s been an ongoing campaign for years to remove one of the singular affordable hangout locations near me and replace it with luxury flats that will seriously damage the local ecosystem under the excuse that the location (a drive in pool, fast food place, bowling alley, cinema, etc) is “too car-centred” despite being literally on a motorway. Like my friend get rid of the motorway first. A local shop near me has a GoFundMe up because a company took advantage of their lease running out and shut them out of being able to even be part of the selling process, and now rent’s becoming impossible. There’s something like 3x as many empty homes in London as homeless people. And this isn’t unique to London but with the financial capital so close it feels like the city’s at war with itself.

Ned is a film bro and annoying about it. His favourite practitioners are Danny Boyle, Baz Luhrmann and Louis Theroux. Also partial to Wes Anderson and Rob Reiner. He’s also a fan of classic films but his first love was 90s-00s cinema.

Almost making the list for his top 4 were The Matrix, Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz or Whiplash. Ned’s kind of miserable in life and doesn’t see a lot of meaning in his situation and is waiting for something to slap him out of it. He likes films with spectacle.

The other DVD he’s holding is When Harry Met Sally because I think he really enjoys romance films as long as they’re ‘critically acclaimed’ and not chick flicks eg Groundhog Day, Jerry Maguire. Because he’s a film bro and a loser.

Lydia was a lot more straightforward because I could just look at my friends’ profiles, although I won’t pretend I’m confident about superhero films. I think she prefers stories about fantastical events because she doesn’t think realism is often captured by narrative fiction film and would rather see something she couldn’t just hear from somebody in real life.

Also had to put Superman II on there because watching that last summer definitely gave me ideas for the project. And because there’s a nutcase journalist who I think Lydia would identify with. The film she’s holding is the Lego Batman movie.

I added Ethan in even though he has seen maybe 3 films in his whole life and doesn’t have access to the internet so he can’t even use Letterboxd because I didn’t want to leave him out.

Ethan’s first real exposure to the medium of film and tv has probably been British daytime tv if you don’t count the propaganda training videos he watched at Hygrade. His favourite genre is probably renovation/property/architecture tv because he didn’t really get a look into ‘domestic life’. He’s seen every single episode of George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces.

But Too Much takes almost the opposite route. Instead of a nice, romantic man who is working class, they instead show what it would REALLY be like to date the people who sound and move in the world like Hugh Grant. They show some of the more bleak aspects of Britain’s modern upper class, and how absolutely unappealing the whole thing is and I LOVED it.

The depiction of Felix’s family (+ the neglect and child abuse) is really interesting. The wedding/party where everyone is performatively progressive but it’s all either to advertise their own work or to maintain politeness while inviting a known rapist to the event is painfully accurate to the types of people I’ve met trying to break into the creative industries. The mentions of racism + general implications in a lot of Felix’s descriptions of his backstory are pretty good as far as someone without that experience can say.