Tara Fitzgerald as Masha. Dani Behr as the eager-to-help Charlie.

“We’ve known Jim for a while,” says Parker. “We knew Rancid was coming out, so we thought it an opportune time to approach him. We managed to sort out a deal and a package where we could develop it and get an option on the rights at an affordable price. There were a lot of people bidding and we’re very lucky to get it.”

For Hawes, the clincher - after the White Merc experience - was that Parker and Thomas would allow him to write his own screenplay. “That was a crucial element in the deal for him,” says Parker. “The fact that we guaranteed that was obviously very important to him. He’s written novels and, as this is his first screenplay, we nurtured him through the process of writing for film.”

In the process, Hawes made some quite big changes - the hero’s job changes from a video production company to publishing and he acquires a cocaine habit along the way - but kept the same surreal black-comedy feel of the original. “It’s a very different way of making the central character attractive,” says Parker. “In a novel, it’s very easy: you’ve got 300 pages. In a film it’s different. And we’re very fortunate that we’ve got Rhys Ifans playing the part of Pete: he’s a fantastic comedy actor.”

Steven Berkoff as the all-powerful Mr Kant.

Ifans, in turn, pays tribute to his other cast members. “It’s a great cast,” he says. “It’s sort of like being in a band but everyone’s the singer.” And Fiennes passes the tribute on to Rancid Aluminium’s director. “Ed’s like a kind of Welsh Byron, a wonderful Celtic poet,” he says. “He’s got great communication with actors. I think he’s possibly acted before, so immediately you feel on a level with him. It’s fascinating to see [the novel’s] syntax lifted from the page into the camera. So you get this wonderful lyricism in Ed’s view and his angle of James’s script.”

Everyone concerned with the movie stresses its status as a one-off, a film which defies categorisation. “The thing that attracted me to the book was that you can create your own genre,” says Thomas. “It’s not a film noir, it’s not a comedy, it’s not a black thriller. It’s a chance for us to make up our own genre. It’s a question of trying to keep a line between the freshness of the wit and the depth of the story. What I’m pleased about is that it’s coming off the page really quickly - and it’s fun to do.

“I was really keen for Rhys to play Pete,” he adds. “He’s a complete anti-hero. I wanted a kind of loose feel to it so it wasn’t, you know, ‘sensible footwear’. Rhys has got his own unique style and I think I can photograph that.”

Keith Allen as free-market guru Dr Jones.

“There are a lot of classical themes here,” adds Fitzgerald, who sports a nifty Russian accent for the film. “One could talk about the journey into the underworld and the eternal battles men have: Age versus Youth; the Single Man versus the State. Rancid Aluminium contains all of those: that’s why I don’t think this is simply another trendy street film. I think it has much deeper places to go and far more layers.

“It works on two levels. James is aware of what is streetwise - of course he is. But he also has that sort of poetic side to his writing, though not in a way that is alienating: I think he’s very humble within it. But these characters do say extraordinary things - they do have a theatricality to them and that makes them interesting and unusual.
“Plus,” she adds, “damaged.”