Sir Jimmy’s Merry Knights
As incongruous as Sir Jimmy and his lot might initially feel, they aren’t actually new to the movie. In fact, the film opens with Jimmy as a child, sitting in a room with other kids and watching Teletubbies. Jimmy (Rocco Haynes) manages to escape when an infected parent rushes in and kills the other youngsters, only to find his father, an Anglican priest, welcoming the infected as a glorious part of judgment day. Before giving himself up to the infected, the priest gives Jimmy his crucifix and tells him not to fear.
Boyle’s camera makes a point of zooming in on the crucifix when Sir Jimmy and his troupe—dubbed, appropriately enough, “the Jimmies”—come to rescue Spike. However, the movie doesn’t yet reveal how young Jimmy’s traumatic experience affected the striking adult we see at the end. Does he have his own religious zeal, just as strange as that of his father? Or did the crucifix just set off a life-long love of jewelry, manifesting in the many rings that adorn his fingers and ears? Also isn’t he wearing that crucifix upside down?
Between the frenetic editing and loud music drops, both touchstones of early 2000s British indie cinema that Boyle gleefully revives here, it’s hard to make out the identity of the Jimmies. But 28 Years Later‘s credits point out a few familiar names playing characters with names that are also familiar… because they’re all “Jimmy.” Erin Kellyman, a genre staple who appeared in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and The Green Knight, plays Jimmy Ink. Emma Laird from A Haunting in Venice and The Brutalist appears as Jimmima. The rest of the Jimmies are called Jimmy Jones, Jimmy Fox, Jimmy Jimmy, Jimmy Shite, and Jimmy Snake.
Certainly, we’ll see more of the various Jims in the next two movie or two, but we can already begin to see how they advance Boyle and Garland’s thematic concerns.
As indicated by the title Jimmy bestowed upon himself, the Jimmies appear to be operating like classical knights. Indeed, Jimmy’s excessive politeness suggests that he and his cohorts subscribe to some type of chivalry code, the virtuous ideals to which knights pledged in medieval Europe. Those knights crafted their values out of a particular interpretation of Christianity, one that may not have been dissimilar to the type that Jimmy’s father impressed upon him.
A Return of the Aristocracy?
The Jimmies’ medieval ways are just one of the many regressions we see in 28 Years Later. The people of Spike’s hometown Lindisfarne defend themselves with rows of archers, not unlike those who once lined castles—a point Boyle drives home by interjecting footage from old movies.
