The Unseen Movie Review

Ladies in Lavender

It’s not often that an actor makes the switch to writer/director without making an idiot of themselves, but somehow Charles Dance has managed it. This is a masterly directorial debut from the 58-year-old star of stage and screen, based round a simple concept and some superb performances by a cast made up of some of Britain’s finest actresses.

Filmed around Cadgwith Cove in Cornwall, one of the most beautiful of the many picturesque little fishing villages of that part of the world, the story centres on two elderly sisters – one a spinster, one a widow. If you were looking for a couple of expert actresses to play elderly British sisters, I’d happily make a sizeable bet you couldn’t do much better than two who have been made Dames of the British Empire for their services to the theatre.

Yep, this film revolves around pitch-perfect performances from Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. They are - unsurprisingly for anyone who has seen them together in 1985’s A Room With A View, 1999’s Tea With Mussolini or on the stage together - a perfect partnership. With lead actresses like these it would be hard to go wrong – add the likes of Miriam Margoyles, David Warner and Natascha McElhone in supporting roles, and you have the makings of a truly expert showcase of acting talent.

Dance is astute enough a first-time helmer to allow the acting to dominate. The film is wonderfully understated, allowing the characters to live and breathe like real people as they cope with the unexpected arrival of a strange young man, played by Goodbye Lenin’s Daniel Brühl, washed ashore to shatter the insular nature of their 1930s village.

This could still so easily have become a clichéd morality tale about the dangers of mistrust and the inherent decency of mankind, as so many other small films about the turmoil created by outsiders have done before. It could have been a Wicker Man style human horror story of the bigotry and weirdness of isolated rural communities. It could have been another bland British costume drama.

Instead, Dance has crafted an unexpected gem from the original story by little-known Edwardian writer William J Locke, and produced a wonderfully low-key film which is reminiscent of the very best the British film industry had to offer in the days before it was packed out with low-budget gangster films and soppy romantic comedies.

To say much more about the story would be to spoil the delight of witnessing it unfold – always in unexpected directions, yet at the same time in ways which are utterly true to the characters, and in no way contrived. In turns funny, melancholy and heartwarming, this wonderful little film deserves to be seen, and deserves to be supported by as many cinemagoers as possible. We know Britain can’t compete with Hollywood. What the British film industry evidently can still do is produce charmingly complex yet simple character studies, and some of the best acting you are likely to see. We need more films like this.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM