Before I say anything else I should perhaps explain to foreign readers what The Big Issue is . It's a magazine that homeless people sell on street corners in large towns and cities where they're allowed to keep most of the profits . There are criteria that must be followed ( Apart from being homeless of course ) one is that you must be polite to the general public and stone cold sober . It's absolutely disgusting that the sellers of The Big Issue are as common on our streets as red pillar boxes and double decker buses
Anyway I'm digressing . IFFY is the title character of our story who's a practising heroin addict who's just found out he's been taken off his methadone program because of his continual late attendance . So the story revolves around Iffy's day as he stands in a town centre selling The Big Issue and looking for his next hit . What I liked about this short is its fly on the wall realism . As Iffy shout " Big issue , big issue " people walk by him trying to pretend he's not there . In a later sequence he's not selling anything and is asking passers by for money , begging in other words and everything about this sequence is so utterly natural I can't believe these people are extras - They're real members of the public
If this was the entire story I would have been deeply touched by it , however there is a serious spanner in the works where two characters are introduced - A child molester and his silent victim . It's suggested that the young boy is Iffy's son and if so by becoming a heroin addict Iffy has allowed his son to suffer the worst fate imaginable which means he deserves as much sympathy as the perpetrator of these deeds - zero sympathy
Update: Someone pointed out to me that the young boy is Iffy when he was a boy and not his son . Still no excuse for Iffy becoming a junkie though