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The Children Act
****
Dir: Richard Eyre
Starring: Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Fionn Whitehead
(UK, 12A 1hr 45 mins)
Adapted by Ian McEwen from his book, The Children Act is a taut, emotionally rich drama that shows how great Emma Thompson can be given the right part. Thompson plays judge Fiona Maye, often dealing with very complex cases.
One involves whether to separate conjoined Siamese twins, which will result in the death of one to save the other; the other an evaluation about whether a 17-year-old Jehovah’s Witness should be allowed to reject a life-saving blood transfusion that is against his religion.
Thompson is juggling this weighty matter whilst also struggling with her own long marriage to affable husband Stanley Tucci. They no longer have sex and he is tentatively asking her about whether he can have an affair. They have no children of their own, whilst her work appears to have consumed her to the detriment of all others.
This downbeat tale is made gripping by its cast. Thompson in particular effortlessly inhabits a woman who takes all her cases personally and has no more space for her own personal life. Director Richard Eyre, who made Notes on a Scandal and Iris, does another fantastic job with his actors in this drama. Everyone is nuanced, Fionn Whitehead’s conflicted Jehovah’s Witness, who becomes obsessed with Thompson’s judge, offers a rich, conflicting portrait of a young man hurtling towards needless tragedy due to his beliefs.
Unusually for a judge Thompson decides to meet and talk with him to help discuss his case and the pair of them develop a sort of friendship. He and Thompson share several touching scenes, singing together as her own private life heads towards acrimony and divorce. Thorny issues surrounding religion and ethics are smartly confronted with subtleties skillfully playing out and Thompson anchoring it all. A quietly powerful adaptation of a quietly powerful novel.
words Keiron Self
Opens August 24