Blackpool
2025 · 13m · United Kingdom
Directed by Stephen Gallacher
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, tender
Billy, a suicidal Northern working-class man, embarks on a final lost weekend in Blackpool — a hilarious, drink-and-drug-fuelled romp through failed attempts at ending it all, until saving a suicidal man dressed as a parrot from the Irish Sea gives him an unexpected reason to live.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Everyone's terrified of suicide comedies, so naturally this one swings for it with a parrot-costumed rescue and finds something genuinely subversive in the gap between dark farce and real tenderness—the kind of premise that makes you uncomfortable for exactly the right reasons.
Gallacher channels a lineage of British social realism tempered by absurdist interventions, and the formal restraint in moving between comedy and dignity suggests a director aware of how carefully you must modulate tone when the stakes are this high.
The decision to make the savior a man dressed as a parrot—not subtle, not cute, genuinely ridiculous—is what sells the whole thing; it's the one absurd detail that makes the emotional turn land instead of feel manipulative.
Reviews
Blackpool creates an unusual mix of mental health struggles and throwing back to childhood holidays, exploring both life's disappointments and its little pleasures. The blend of styles and balance of different tones is achieved really well.