Movie Review: The Children Act

The Children Act *** / *****

Directed by: Richard Eyre.

Written by: Ian McEwan based on the novel by Ian McEwan.

Starring: Emma Thompson (Fiona Maye), Stanley Tucci (Jack Maye), Ben Chaplin (Kevin Henry), Fionn Whitehead (Adam Henry), Jason Watkins (Nigel Pauling), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Amadia Kalu QC), Rosie Cavaliero (Marina Green), Rupert Vansittart (Sherwood Runcie), Honey Holmes (Director / Producer), Anthony Calf (Mark Berner), Eileen Walsh (Naomi Henry), Nicholas Jones (Professor Rodney Carter).

 

The Children Act is a film that neatly – too neatly – is about the difference between what is moral and what is legal, and how messy that can become. When the film opens, Fiona Maye (Emma Thompson, terrific as always) is a Judge who has to make a terrible decision – a pair of conjoined twins needs to be separated or both will die. But if they separate them, one will die immediately. The parents don’t want the operation, but the hospital does? What is to be done? Her decision is a legal one she says, not a moral one. When she returns home, her longtime husband, Jack (Stanley Tucci) announces that he is going to have an affair. He still loves his wife, but she’s always too busy for him. They haven’t had sex in 11 months, and have essentially become siblings. He could have just had the affair, and covered it up – one of his major complaints is that she works constantly, so she may well have not noticed – but he didn’t want to lie about it. There is no question of the legality of the situation – adultery is not illegal – but there certainly is a moral one.

 

The two will come together in the aftermath of these two decisions when as a judge, Fiona once again has a difficult decision. A teenager, just a few months’ shy of his 18^th birthday, Adam (Fionn Whitehead) is undergoing cancer treatment – and if he doesn’t get a blood transfusion during the process, he will almost certainly die. But he and his family is a devote Jehovah’s Witnesses, and do not believe in blood transfusion – that makes them unclean, and cannot be undone. If he were 18, he could make the decision himself. Since he is not, he cannot. Fiona listens to all the legal arguments in front of her – and then makes the strange decision that she wants to talk to Adam directly – to see what he has to say.

 

The film can neatly be divided in half – everything that leads up to the decision Fiona makes about Adam, and everything that happens after. I will say, that the first half of the film is significantly better than the second. It is here, when the movie is wrestling with complex questions of legality and morality – and you argue yourself into taking either position, both in the legal and martial arguments, Fiona is involved in. This part is intelligent, well-written, and extremely well-acted. Richard Eyre’s direction isn’t flashy – that precisely the point – but cold and almost clinical, as he if he is remaining neutral. (Spoiler alert). I don’t much think the second half of the film works nearly as well – as Adam, now recovered thanks to Fiona’a decision, starts to write her notes, and even somewhat stalking her – thinking of her as a savior of sorts. There is even an element of sexual tension between the two of them. Thompson pretty much single handedly saves this portion of the movie – as it is all about her own delusions about her career as they come crashing down around her. That is interesting – the plot mechanics, and scenes between her and Adam are not (End Spoilers).

 

The film is yet another based on an Ian McEwan novel – and while I haven’t read this one, I would know it was his work regardless. His novels – and the films based on them – are often better in their openings then their closings, better when people wrestle with whether or not to do something, than they are in dealing with the consequences of what was done (the exception – Atonement). Here, the first act is so strong, that I wanted something more from the second act – something the film cannot give, because is essence, it writes itself into a corner. It’s still a fine film in many ways – and a reminder of just how good Thompson can be – but it could, and should have, been more.

DVD Views: The Other Man

The Other Man ** ½
Directed by: Richard Eyre.
Written By: Richard Eyre & Charles Wood based on the short story by Bernhard Schlink.
Starring: Liam Neeson (Peter), Antonio Banderas (Ralph), Laura Linney (Lisa), Romola Garai (Abigail).

The Other Man is an uncommonly quiet film. While the film is about adultery, it does not contain the usual blowups and flying accusations that most other films on the subject do. Instead, it is about a quiet man who finds out his wife was unfaithful to him, and although he is filled with rage, he wants to discover the reason why she did, instead of just getting revenge.

We meet Peter (Liam Neeson) and Lisa (Laura) one night as they go out to dinner. He is a stuffy business executive, and she is a shoe designer, and although he doesn’t really fit into her world, but is loving and supportive. At dinner, they have a strange conversation, where Lisa wants to know if Peter every wanted to sleep with someone else. We flash forward an undetermined length of time, and Lisa is gone. Peter hacks into her computer and discovers a series of e-mails from someone named Ralph, and a file marked Love, which makes it clear that at one point at least, Lisa had an affair. Peter tracks down Ralph (Antonio Banderas), and goes to see him. But instead of confronting him about the affair, he befriends Ralph, and gradually draws out details about what Ralph and Lisa shared.

The performances in the movie are its primary virtue. Neeson is very still in the film, his performance incredibly subtle. Often he is seething with rage, yet he keeps a straight face while talking to Ralph as to not give himself away, We catch the occasional flicker of that pain coming to the surface, and when he talks to his daughter (Romola Garai) he lets some of that pain out, but mainly its all internal. There is a danger in this type of acting - if the actor does not know what she’s doing, it can come across as stiff and emotionless. But Neeson is a master at it, and it makes Peter all the more fascinating. But Antonio Banderas could be even better. On the surface, Ralph is all flash and charm, yet gradually the movie, and Banderas, show the kind of person he really is. He is a hero, a lothario, only in his own mind, and he has blown the affair with Lisa out of proportion. But Banderas makes Ralph into an almost sympathetic character. Linney’s role is much smaller - mainly there for the key dinner sequence at the beginning of the film, and several flashbacks, but its still a gut fine role.

Yet despite yet the films strength could also be its weakness – if that makes any sense at all. While I appreciated the fact that the film is quiet and subtle – and never overplays it hand – it also makes the film dull at times. We want Neesom to get angry, and he never does. We want some sort of closure, but the film is unwilling, or unable, to give this movie a satisfactory ending. What’s worse, is the movie plays hide and seek with us, only gradually revealing where exactly it is that Lisa has gone. When he we find out – what is supposed to be an emotional wallop does not come through. We figure it out long before then.

Director Richard Eyre (Iris, Notes on a Scandal) is a talented director, and The Other Man is certainly not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. But it is a rather lifeless one.