The Children Act. (15)
Directed by Richard Eyre.
Starring Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Fionn Whitehead, Ben Chaplin, Eileen Walsh, Anthony Calf, and Jason Watkins. 105 mins.
Sometimes I like to fantasize about all the things I'd do if I didn't spend evenings and weekends reviewing films. I'd like to imagine walking the fells, reading good books, doing voluntary work, etc. I know that the reality would be A, sitting in pubs and complaining, B, watching television and complaining. And the television I'd be watching would probably be 9.00 p.m. dramas in the style of The Children Act, an issue based piece adapted by Ian McEwan, from a novel by Ian McEwan, probably to sate the curiosity of nobody other than Ian McEwan.
This one has Thompson playing a workaholic high court judge who seems to specialize in ethical dilemma cases and is in a loving but chaste marriage to Tucci. She says things like, “it's my conjoined twins tomorrow and I've got the Archbishop of Canterbury breathing down my neck." He says things like, "I think I'm going to have an affair." She doesn't take this well and their marriage begins to unravel as she hears the case of a teenage Jehovah's Witness (Whitehead) who has leukaemia but refuses to receive a blood transfusion because they believe that your blood is your own and is not to be mixed. (Which I believe was Tony Hancock's stance in The Blood Donor.)
McEwan has spent this year picking his meticulously crafted, widely admired novels apart on the big screen. First On Chesil Beach and now his, admittedly less well received, 2014 novel. Successful authors mostly sit back and let others ruin their work for the flicks, but McEwan must get some perverse kick out of seeing them crumble by his own hands.
Thompson's judge doesn't just take a Godlike stance in court, but in her personal life too. She refuses to enter into debate and remains aloof from the consequences of her actions. Yet her actions are to deny that certainty of God to others. This is a premise that you can make work on the page, but the process of adjusting and paring down for the movies - the snip here, the shortcut there - cuts out most of the novel.
The appeal of the film is meat. It feels substantial like it is really about something but by the end you're wondering what exactly that meaty substance was. It all seemed important and weighty while you were watching, and then it wasn't. But, overall I still feel like there is something worthwhile here. The look behind the curtain at the world of the judiciary is intriguing and though Tucci doesn't get much to do Thompson, in her inimitable way, carries off the role rather well. To be cold and fearsome and vulnerable simultaneously and for none of those performance aspects to seem fake is quite an achievement.
Directed by Richard Eyre.
Starring Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Fionn Whitehead, Ben Chaplin, Eileen Walsh, Anthony Calf, and Jason Watkins. 105 mins.
Sometimes I like to fantasize about all the things I'd do if I didn't spend evenings and weekends reviewing films. I'd like to imagine walking the fells, reading good books, doing voluntary work, etc. I know that the reality would be A, sitting in pubs and complaining, B, watching television and complaining. And the television I'd be watching would probably be 9.00 p.m. dramas in the style of The Children Act, an issue based piece adapted by Ian McEwan, from a novel by Ian McEwan, probably to sate the curiosity of nobody other than Ian McEwan.
This one has Thompson playing a workaholic high court judge who seems to specialize in ethical dilemma cases and is in a loving but chaste marriage to Tucci. She says things like, “it's my conjoined twins tomorrow and I've got the Archbishop of Canterbury breathing down my neck." He says things like, "I think I'm going to have an affair." She doesn't take this well and their marriage begins to unravel as she hears the case of a teenage Jehovah's Witness (Whitehead) who has leukaemia but refuses to receive a blood transfusion because they believe that your blood is your own and is not to be mixed. (Which I believe was Tony Hancock's stance in The Blood Donor.)
McEwan has spent this year picking his meticulously crafted, widely admired novels apart on the big screen. First On Chesil Beach and now his, admittedly less well received, 2014 novel. Successful authors mostly sit back and let others ruin their work for the flicks, but McEwan must get some perverse kick out of seeing them crumble by his own hands.
Thompson's judge doesn't just take a Godlike stance in court, but in her personal life too. She refuses to enter into debate and remains aloof from the consequences of her actions. Yet her actions are to deny that certainty of God to others. This is a premise that you can make work on the page, but the process of adjusting and paring down for the movies - the snip here, the shortcut there - cuts out most of the novel.
The appeal of the film is meat. It feels substantial like it is really about something but by the end you're wondering what exactly that meaty substance was. It all seemed important and weighty while you were watching, and then it wasn't. But, overall I still feel like there is something worthwhile here. The look behind the curtain at the world of the judiciary is intriguing and though Tucci doesn't get much to do Thompson, in her inimitable way, carries off the role rather well. To be cold and fearsome and vulnerable simultaneously and for none of those performance aspects to seem fake is quite an achievement.
