In Sweet Sixteen, the viewer forgets about Liam’s age until he commits an immature act. Liam thinks he’s Braveheart at that moment when he’s just a confused kid fighting over small packets of powder. Was repossessing this specific bag of drugs pivotal in attaining a new lease of life for Jean, or was Liam’s reaction more about proving his manliness compared to Stan? The smile on his face in the aftermath suggests the latter.
Loach shows a character who should be respected for never giving up, but this steadfast aspect makes him pathetic – the purveyor of his own downfall. He yells “give me my fucking gear” repeatedly until his pleas turn somewhat hilarious to the viewer. In a sequence where a gang rip him off of his drugs, he retaliates several times, losing each fight, his face getting bloodier. Liam’s prevailing flaw: his disguising of recklessness as hunter-gatherer machismo. Liam tries overcoming what’s expected by his family and peers, but he succumbs to their doom. The Greenock depicted by Ken Loach takes ambition and literally burns it to the ground. A battling man can’t win against their environment. There’s intelligence beyond his years inside of him, but growing up in an atmosphere of dereliction and hatred and survivalist instincts means his path down criminality would always happen. If Liam built his empire through so-called legitimate methods, he’d be on the front cover of Entrepreneur Magazine. He sets up working relationships and delivery mechanisms among his friends to the point where he attracts attention and admiration from the biggest drug lord in Greenock. Liam’s ambitions are mountainous given his age but, for someone yet to have their first shave, he has great business acumen. And all it involves is stealing Stan’s drugs, selling them, and using the money to buy a caravan in the middle of nowhere. He moves in with big sister Chantelle (Annamarie Fulton) and from there formulates a plan: one that’ll ensure a better life for Jean upon her release. Liam has been tolerating her boyfriend Stan (Gary McCormack) and his Granddad (Tommy McKee) in the meantime, but soon finds himself homeless when he refuses to traffic drugs for them during a prison visitation. Sweet Sixteen tells the story of Liam (Martin Compton), a good-hearted if reckless ned whose Ma, Jean (Michelle Coulter), is serving time for several offences she didn’t commit. Now apply this to a small Scottish town destroyed by dying industry and suddenly the prospect of growing up becomes terrifying. The world is their oyster: able to get a real job, have sex, marry, or even go to war – and only a few years before that first drop of (legal) booze too. Imagine a cacophony of American teenagers celebrating with flash cars and Great Gatsby-like parties to signify their entrance into adulthood. The title, Sweet Sixteen, evokes mental images of an MTV fantasy. Sweet Sixteen: The Arbitary Age Marker of Doom
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