It’s no stretch to suppose that most of the snarl-ups and snafus featured in this comedy have been drawn directly from the lives of the filmmakers – though the fact that they’ve pulled off this witty, endearing and confident film indicates that they possess a considerably higher level of competence than their characters… In any case, the setbacks that blight the featured no-budget labour of love will be achingly familiar to any filmmakers in the audience, and should be read as salutary warnings by anyone harbouring hopes of entering the industry. Yes, the actor who was charm itself at audition stage will morph into a giant, distended ego on legs once the shoot begins. Yes, the equipment you ordered will prove to be absent, inadequate or broken. No, the regional funding body won’t return your calls; and yes, your romantic partner will grow weary of hearing about the regional funding body not returning your calls, and will dump you. We have in-jokes, then – but not just in-jokes. The raw style and unassuming good cheer of Big Things recall the wry, dry TV comedy of Peep Show, The Inbetweeners and The Office, as well as the early film work of Shane Meadows (in whose Nottingham neck of the woods this was made); and like those precursors, Big Things uses irony and farce to half-mask undercurrents about young male inadequacy and class insecurity. The passion project of neophyte director Richard (played by screenwriter Tony Claassen) is a jumble of kitchen-sink clichés, concerning a runner whose sporting endeavours are an unsubtle metaphor for a generalised conflict with father figures, women and society at large. Richard’s ineptitude on-set and crushing lack of knowledge about the industry he’s desperate to enter render him an amusing analogue for every underdog who has ever pursued a dream with blind disregard for the basic skillset it requires. In fact, rather than repeating the customary filmic exhortation to audience members to follow their dreams whatever the odds, Big Things ultimately takes the rather more fatalistic but bracingly sensible position that your dreams might well be leading you in absolutely the wrong direction. And in an industry that can’t possibly sustain the number of wannabes who think it holds a future for them, perhaps that’s not such an insignificant point to make.