"Paul Carty is 19, and bored out of his mind. His mother died a year ago. He lives in middle class suburbia with his silently grieving father and feisty young sister, Molly. Carty works as a junior civil servant and spends all his wages on clubs, records, football and gigs. It's at a Bunnymen gig that he meets Elvis. Elvis changes everything.
He's part of a gang called The Pack. The Pack are notorious; they dress in a cultish, almost effeminate style that's at odds with the boneheads and bootboys they fight against. They have androgynous wedge haircuts worn with Fred Perry shirts, Lois jeans and Adidas Forest Hills training shoes. For as long as he has been going to football, Carty has been fascinated by The Pack. Now Elvis seems to be offering him a way in.
Except he isn't. For all that Carty lionises The Pack, Elvis dilutes his idealism. He warns Carty that these lads are nobodies. Elvis is a council estate romantic, a dreamer with big plans about escaping to Berlin, New York, anywhere... anywhere, so long as Carty comes with him. He's been waiting all his life for someone like Carty, someone he can talk with and relate to about art, music, poetry...suicide. They love the same bands - Magazine, Joy Division, Wire - and think the same way; or so Elvis wants to believe. He's smitten with his new mate and plans the big journeys they'll make together.
But Carty soon gets to know the 'other' Elvis - moody, fatalistic and possessive. He throws as many obstacles as he can in Carty's path, whenever he fears he's losing him. Elvis is all too well aware how badly Carty craves the Pack lifestyle, and tries to keep him away - but in spite of all his warnings, Carty's on a collision course, plunging deeper into their dark and vicious world. Elvis can see how Carty's fascination is blinding him, yet he's powerless to pull him back from the brink. Once he's been on his first awayday and sampled the buzz of random violence, Carty just wants more, more, more...
But Carty is never truly accepted by the gang. He's there on sufferance because his sponsor, the psychotic yet enigmatic Elvis is so revered. Their conflict reaches its crisis as Carty tries harder and harder to impress the wild boys, while Elvis sinks deeper into paranoia and jealousy. Something has to break."
Awaydays gets its long-awaited film release on 22nd May 2009. Website is here with a few clips and pictures from the film. It looks fantastic! Adidas are releasing a range of trainers and clothes to coincide with the film too....
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