[wpdevart_youtube]Xim5MhHtbEI[/wpdevart_youtube]
Tell It To The Bees
***
Dir: Annabel Jankel
Starring: Anna Paquin, Holliday Grainger
(UK, 12A 1hr 46mins)
A by-the-numbers period romance based on Fiona Shaw’s novel, raised in status by the performances of Anna Paquin and Holliday Grainger. It’s Scotland in the 1950s in a small rural town and single mum Lydia, played by Grainger, is abandoned by her war veteran husband, leaving her to fend for herself with son Charlie (Gregor Selkirk).
Local doctor Jean (Paquin) returns to the town following the death of her father, gossip hanging around her like a shroud. She ends up treating Charlie after he is ruthlessly bullied at school. The two women strike up a friendship that turns into something more. The boy is fascinated by Jean, who encourages him to read, and teaches him about bees, encouraging him to tell these creatures his secrets.
Naturally this idyll doesn’t last for long as the women’s love affair is discovered and the venom of the small-minded town turns on them. Packing in the social issues, from domestic violence, social immobility, rape, bullying and prejudice, the film’s heart is the relationship between Paquin and Grainger, and Selkirk’s innocent boy caught up in adult affairs.
The boy is confused at what is happening to his mother and her friend, as they fall in love and have to hide their relationship from the town. Director Jankel, who also brought us the Super Mario Brothers movie and Max Headroom back in the 1990s observes unfussily in austere period style as the film veers from a charming romance to something bleaker. Handsomely mounted if predictable, Tell It To The Bees is a solid romance with an abundance of issues that are often skated over, but with enough character grace notes to make cinematic honey.
Opens July 26