Tag: UK

How I Live Now

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★★★
“My Sweet Sixteen Teenage Armageddon.”

howilivenowThe extraordinarily surly teenager Elizabeth (Ronan), who loudly insists on being known by everyone as “Daisy,” is sent from American to spend the summer in rural Britain with relatives. Unsurprisingly, she hates it – at least, until she meets Eddie (MacKay), a local brooding hunk for whom she falls. Fate throws a spanner in the works, however, as escalating tensions eventually lead to a nuclear attack on London and the outbreak of World War 3, against an un-named foe. The kids try to fend for themselves, but the boys and girls are forcibly separated, with Daisy having to take care of young cousin Piper (Bird). Turning her willpower to topic other than, as she says, not eating chocolate, she and Piper escape the camp where they are being used as forced labour, and begin the hazardous trek back to where Daisy is sure Eddie is waiting.

The best thing here by far is the heroine’s character arc. In the first two minutes, it’s established what a totally unlikeable bitch Daisy is: she has clearly made up her mind to hate the trip and everything about it, and the audience hates her for the obvious narcissism. But by the end, she has been forged in the fire of adversity and completely transformed in just about all aspects of personality, to someone who has learned that it’s much better to live your life for others than for yourself. As Chris noted, it’d be funny if the whole thing had just been a set-up by her (unseen) father, just to teach his whiny daughter a good lesson. That isn’t the case: what it is, is another powerhouse performance by Ronan, backed by solid work from the rest of the young cast, particularly Piper, who could gives the likes of Abigail Breslin and Dakota Fanning a run for their money in the Adorability Stakes.

Probably the main weakness is the abruptness of the relationship between Daisy and Eddie. It probably needed more time taken to develop it, because as things stand, it seems Daisy falls head over heels for him at about the second glance. On the other hand, I’m quite glad it didn’t because it’s the kind of standard, young adult cliché which we’ve seen far too often before [this was based on a book from the genre by Meg Rosoff]. Much more satisfying is the second half, when Daisy is forced entirely into relying on her own skills, and becomes a much more interesting character as a result. Director Macdonald got his start in documentary film-making and brings much of the same urgency to proceedings here, not soft-pedalling the brutality and violence of armed conflict. Like a more contemporary version of The Hunger Games, it shows how inner strength can be found in the most surprising of places, and Ronan cements her position as one of the leading young action heroines in Hollywood.

Dir: Kevin Macdonald
Star: Saoirse Ronan, George MacKay, Harley Bird, Tom Holland

Shadow Dancer

  By

★★★½
“The informant who went into the cold.”

shadowdancerIt’s 1993, and the peace process in Northern Ireland is cautiously inching forward – though there are some who prefer a more robust method of rebellion, shall we say. Among them is Collette McVeigh (Riseborough) whose little brother was killed by the British Army when she was 12. Along with her brothers Gerry (Gillen, whom you’ll know as Littlefinger from Game of Thrones) and Connor, she is part of the armed struggle, until a mission to plant a bomb in London leads to her capture. MI5 officer Mac (Owen) gives her a stark choice: face a long stretch in prison, separated from her children, or become an informer on her own family.  Collette chooses the later, perhaps influenced by Mac showing her it was an IRA sniper who killed her brother. But it soon becomes clear more is at play, with Mac’s boss (Anderson) apparently intent on sacrificing Collette, in order to protect another, more valuable asset.

Man, this is chilly. Just about everyone in this is being manipulated by one or more of the other characters. It is particularly successful at bringing home just how much the life of an informant must become a gurgling vortex of paranoid loneliness: you can’t trust anyone, and your life could end at virtually any moment. There’s one scene which really brings that home, where Collette is taken to an abandoned apartment, and quizzed about recent security breaches by her cell’s “compliance officer” (for want of a better job description!). She’s entirely on her own, and not even her brothers would be able to help if the truth is revealed. But she’s certainly not the only one: Mac is equally being used by his boss as a tool, and with a coldness that’s particularly chilling, since they’re supposed to be on the same side. Enhancing this, is that the viewer can see the point: it’s like a game of chess where a knight is sacrificed to protect the queen. Doesn’t make it any less painful for the knight of course, but the greater good is not necessarily painless. As a result, there are no real villains here: there are, however, a number of people who have to do unpleasant things for others, either through coercion or because they believe them to be justified. Such is the murky world of terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Director Marsh is best known for his docudrama Man on Wire, about a tight-rope walker who strung a line between the two towers of the World Trade Center in 1974 and crossed between them, 1,350 feet up. This provides a similar same sense of living on a knife-edge, and resulting ever-present peril – along with the threat of violence, which even infects something as solemn as a funeral. The double-twist ending is shocking, though I confess the second one seemed to appear out of nowhere, and appeared to offer little more than this shock value. Still, as a tense drama, this is solid enough, anchored by decent performances from all involved.

Dir: James Marsh
Star: Andrea Riseborough, Clive Owen, Gillian Anderson, Aidan Gillen

Dangerous Lady

  By

★★★★
“No luck of the Irish to be found here.”

dangerousladyBased on the debut novel by British crime writer Martina Cole, this depicts the life of Maura Ryan (Lynch), the only daughter in her family, whose brothers are making a push for increased power in the underworld of 1960’s London, much to the disapproval of the Ryan’s matriarch (Hancock). Leading the push is Michael (Isaacs), who has more than a touch of Ronnie Kray about him, being both homosexual and a borderline psychotic. Maura falls in love with Terry Patterson (Teale), and is shocked to discover he’s a policeman. When he comes under pressure from colleagues to use their relationship, he ends it – unaware that Maura has just become pregnant. She is forced to have an abortion, which leaves her insides looking like they’ve been weed-whacked, and vows she’s going to show him, by becoming every bit the gangster peer of her brothers. But the path to the top is littered with dead bodies, of foes, friends and family.

There’s not a great deal here which you haven’t seen in a million other dramas about organized crime, be they set in America with the mafia, or Hong Kong and the triads. The whole “trying to go straight and make an honest life” thing is certainly not new, and strapping a skirt on, isn’t enough to make it so. It’s really the performances which make this work, and the acting is top-notch. Among the men, Isaacs is outstanding, going from zero to brutal in the blink of an eye, and you certainly get the notion of someone who was turned into what he became (Cole doesn’t explicitly snort derisively at “born that way”, but it’s certainly implied abuse as a youngster by another mobster is behind many of Michael’s problems). He’s a bundle of conflicting emotions: fiercely loyal to family members, but capable of savage brutality to anyone who betrays him, or whom he considers a threat.

But it’s Lynch and Hancock who are the driving force here, and both are excellent. The latter was a veteran of 40-plus years in plays, films and TV, and portrays Mrs. Ryan as being a loving mother, but one who gradually comes to the conclusion that they are beyond her control, Michael in particular. However, by the time she has realized this, she’s helpless to do anything much about it, except bar Michael from the house, even though that causes her pain, probably only a mother can know. Lynch plays Maura with very much the same streak of stubborn steel. As the show develops over its 50-minutes episodes, she becomes someone who won’t let anyone, least of all her family, tell her what to do, because she has seen the consequences of those bad decisions. She may not be right, but if she isn’t, at least it’s her own choice. You can’t help rooting for Maura, a victim of circumstance, as she negotiates the tricky life of a woman in the era, especially one in an area certainly not exactly female-friendly.

It’s slightly disappointing that we don’t get to see Maura go all Scarface on anyone; despite the cover picture, I’m not certain I recall her pulling the trigger at any point. However, that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm  for a solid slab of television drama, and we were sad to reach the end and realize that there were only four episodes – it’s an idea which could certainly have sustained a full season. I’ve now acquired a few of Cole’s books, and look forward to reading them in due course.

Dir: John Woods
Star: Susan Lynch, Jason Isaacs, Owen Teal, Sheila Hancock

Sket

  By

★★★
“A Gun for Jennifer, UK edition”

“I saw my dad beat the fuck out of that woman, day in and day out. She was pathetic. Not once did she swing back, not once. The only way you’ll survive is to become like them. Otherwise you’ll end up like our mothers.”

sketPurely coincidental that I viewed this not long after A Gun For Jennifer. The films share some common themes, despite 15 years and a couple of thousand of miles between them (not to mention the French poster on the right, which is a lot more riot-y than the movie itself). In both, a “new girl in town” finds herself harassed by a couple of sleazeballs, only to be rescued by a gang of women. While initially reluctant to join them, they give the heroine a sense of belonging, sadly lacking in the rest of her life, and she’s drawn in to their illicit lifestyle. However, there’s always someone tougher out there, meaning tragedy and the death of someone close to you, is never far away when you’re on the mean streets of the big city.

Okay, it’s a little bit of a stretch to call them identical, but I felt definite resonances, despite the hell which is North London, standing in for New York [I lived in London for over a decade, albeit in Sarf London – which as everyone there knows, if far superior to the Norf]. As for differences? The women here are also younger, heroine Kayla (Foster-Barnes) maybe 15 or so, when she arrives with her elder sister Tanya from Newcastle. After being harassed on a bus, she falls in with Danielle (Hartley-Miller) and her gang, who look out for each other, since no-one else will. But Tanya has the misfortune to cross paths with violent drug dealer Trey (Walters), paying the price for interfering in his business. With Kayla capable of turning him in to the police, Trey tries to tidy up the loose end, forcing the young girl on the run, as she vows revenge. Kayla finds a willing accomplice in Danielle – and, perhaps, a surprising one in Trey’s girlfriend, Shaks (Steele), who has her own agenda.

There are some elements here which do stretch disbelief somewhat (where are the authorities? Or even her father, who barely shows up, even after the loss of a daughter) , but the performances help overcome this weakness. Hartley-Miller, in particular, is entirely convincing, creating a character you’d cross the street to avoid, yet still with the sense she’s a victim as much as a perpetrator. Steele is also very good, perpetually giving the sense that she’s analyzing the situation like a chess-master: the scenes where Danielle and Shaks face off are wonderfully intense, and I’d have liked to see more of them. Foster-Barnes isn’t quite there, apparently suffering from a bad case of Resting Bitchface, although her character has been through enough, it’s kinda understandable.

A little heavy on the grime soundtrack, the plot also wanders off occasionally in directions like vengeance on an ex-boyfriend, that turn out to be nothing but a needless diversion. But it’s still a solid enough attempt at exploring an under-explored area of female culture, particularly in the UK.  Oh, yeah: in case you’re wondering, the title is an epithet for a sexually promiscuous woman. It was originally “Sketel,” and is Jamaican in origin. Never say this site isn’t educational.

Dir: Nirpal Bhogal
Star: Katie Foster-Barnes, Emma Hartley-Miller, Riann Steele, Ashley Walters

Prime Suspect

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Before there was The Cooler, before there was either version of The Killing, and obviously before there was Maria Bello’s short-lived Americanized take, there was Dame Helen Mirren as Jane Tennison, one of the canonical figures of action heroine television over the past two decades. Though only fifteen feature-length episodes were aired – that works out at only one a year between the show’s debut in 1991, and its finale in 2006 – it has become an archetype for its portrayal of a female detective, relentless in her pursuit of criminals, but considerably more ill at-ease and abrasive when handling the people with whom she has to work. She’s great at spotting clues, interrogating suspects and putting together the pieces. However, Tennison’s personal life is a complete mess, she screws up any relationships on an almost daily basis, and is completely incapable of striking a balance between work and everything outside it.

Such a complex character requires an actress of the highest talents, and Mirren provides it. Before her film career, she cut here teeth with the Royal Shakespeare Company, though her early cinematic work includes both classic (The Long Good Friday) and entries which one suspects she’d rather forget (Caligula!). But even in the latter, she still carried herself with grace and poise, elevating the material. By the early nineties, she was respwected, yet not quite as renowned as she would become – her first Oscar nomination would not be until 1994, for The Madness of King George. Even now, Mirren acknowledges the show’s importance in her career: “It was an incredibly important part of what’s got me to where I am today. It was intense, many many hours on a set with many different directors, many different writers. I loved it, and that’s the way you learn.” Series creator Lynda LaPlante was also well established, having previously created a similarly iconic female character, on the other side of the law, in Dolly Rawlins, for her crime series, Widows.

While far from the first to portray a British female detective, the new show was a fairly-radical departure from previous entries such as Juliet Bravo or The Gentle Touch which, as the latter’s name suggests, sought to portray a kinder, gentler police force, with heroines comfortable at both home and work. LaPlante was having none of that, placing Jane Tennison in situations which contrasted her skills at police-work with her abject failures elsewhere (the show wisely chooses to focus much more on the former). Right from the start, Tennison has to prove herself in a male-dominated environment against the constant suspicion that she reached her position because of affirmative action, rather than on merit. Finding the right person for the role was crucial, LaPlante told NewsWeek in 1994, “She’s not physically heavy, but she has a strength inside her that is unusual. There’s a stillness to her, a great tension and intelligence in her face.”

One of the fascinating things about the show is the change that Tennison undergoes over the course of the series, which is particularly apparent if you watch them all in relatively short order. It would be hard to imagine an American show sticking with the same character over such a long period, but the infrequency of the production likely helps, and we see Tennison evolve over the length of the show from a somewhat tentative and naive detective, becoming hard-bitten and cynical (for very good cause), eventually ending up an alcoholic, teetering on the edge of complete burn-out and suffering from blackouts and the DTs, who is trying to solve one last case reach retirement through sheer, bloody-minded willpower. It’s a fascinating arc to watch, and I particularly appreciated the way, at the end of the final episode, the writers didn’t provide an obvious or “fluffy” ending, which could have compromised the integrity of the entire show.

“Women are taught to smile, to be pleasant, to be charming, to be attractive. Tennison doesn’t do that. She is driven, obsessive, vulnerable, unpleasantly egotistical, and confused. But she is damn good at what she does and is totally dedicated.”
— Helen Mirren

Mirren is the sole character to appear in all the episodes. She’s supported by a swathe of faces you’ll recognize if you spend any time watching British television or movies. The first series alone included future Oscar nominees Tom Wilkinson and Ranulph Fiennes, as well as Zoe Wanamaker, and others to be seen include David Thewlis, Ciaran Hinds, Jonny Lee Miller, Mark Strong, Frank Finlay and Peter Capaldi, recently announced as the new Dr. Who [in Suspect, he plays a transvestite, which is certainly… different]. Most of the series are single stories, told over two 100-minute episodes, except for the fourth, which is a trio of individual parts. This extended length, allowing a single crime to be dissected in greater depth, is another difference to American shows, which tend very much to be “crime of the week,” with or without also a longer story arc.

While all the cases are homicides, they cover a wide breadth. After the first season, there tended to be an underlying social issue: this could be racial, political or class-based, and often provide an additional level of difficulty to the investigation. Particularly in the early seasons, Tennison is depicted as having to fight prejudice from her colleagues. The feminist aspects (perhaps thankfully) do fade somewhat, once she becomes more established, though the level of support she gets from her superiors is never something on which she can rely. Throughout, she struggles with self-doubt and loneliness in her position, no-one able to understand the pressures of the job, and help share the burden on her shoulders. But part of her strength is that it never interferes with her dedication to the case, or her pursuit of those responsible for wrong-doing. Unlike a good number of her colleagues, who are sometimes prepared to sacrifice justice for the sake of expediency, Tennison’s morality is absolute, and she won’t compromise it for anything, regardless of the potential personal cost.

Obviously, this isn’t “action” in the “fisticuffs and car-chase” mould of policework (I’ll refer you to Red and its sequel if you want to see Mirren wielding the heavy weaponry!). Virtually the only weapons Tennison wields are her mind and her tongue, but it’s hard to tell which is the sharper, and they are both undeniably effective at getting to the truth, no matter how deeply it may be hidden. Her bravery is undeniable, not just in the perpetual quest for justice mentioned above, but her willingness to put herself into potentially lethal situations when the need arises., such as at the end of the fifth series where she faces an armed suspect, alone and without anything to protect her. While it’s one thing to go into such situations with the physical presence to handle them, doing so when you don’t have such an ability, is probably even more courageous.

Though some episodes are now more than 20 years old, they hardly seem dated at all: the writing is still sharp as a razor, and can stand with anything you’ll find on television today. But it’s Mirren’s performance which makes this work, and is why I just didn’t bother with the US remake; good though Bello might be, she can’t hold a candle to the original. There’s a reason Mirren was nominated for six Emmys, winning two, and six BAFTAs, taking home three. Virtually every cop show with a female lead which has come out since – or, at least, all the good ones – owe something to Prime Suspect, and a central character who embodies the tension between work and home life. Never shying away from the darker side of law-enforcement, or the toll it exerts on those who maintain it, this isn’t just one of the best recent action heroine TV series, it’s among the best TV series of any genre or era.

Hannie Caulder

  By

★★★½
“Iconic imagery, but not really too convincing a heroine. “

If genre entries produced in Italy are “spaghetti Westerns”, what does that make those produced in Britain? “Fish and chip Westerns?” “Roast beef Westerns?” Shot in Spain, but made by Tigon Film, and including such quintessential Brits as Christopher Lee and Diana Dors in supporting roles, this is nicely-photographed and hits all the right notes. But as the titular character, who seeks revenge after her husband is gunned down, and she herself raped, by the Clemens brothers, Welch perhaps has too much cinematic baggage. While responsible for one of the all-time absolute classic images of the genre, it’s an association which leaves the viewer struggling to look at the heroine without seeing fur bikinis or even Fathom, rather than a widow, hellbent on and dedicated to vengeance with an almost psychotic obsession and lack of self-concern.

Still, there is plenty to enjoy, not least Culp as the bounty hunter who, reluctantly, agrees to take Caulder under his wing, largely realizing that she’s going to get herself killed otherwise. He delivers exactly the right air of world-weary wisdom, and Hannie’s training is covered in enough depth, and with enough bumps in the road, to be credible. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the Clemens (Borgnine, Martin and Jack Elam): for some reason, they are portrayed almost as comedic jesters or harmless buffoons, characters in great contrast to the vicious rapists and killers we first see. It’s an odd combination, that doesn’t work. Much better used is Lee, as a gunsmith who has retired to Mexico to raise rug-rats, and it’s there Caulder’s mettle is first tested.

I did suspect that she wouldn’t be able to complete her mission without significant male help – this was made in 1971, after all. I was somewhat right, but only somewhat. The ending is both fairly satisfying, in that it avoids the obvious get-out in this direction, but also unsatisfying, in that it merely replaces it with a different one, which is likely too much of a deus ex machina to be acceptable. However, there’s no denying Welch’s credentials as a screen icon, and if this could never be called a classic of the genre, there’s enough here that does work, to make this more than an acceptable entry in the field. Even if one which, thanks to its Anglo origins, perhaps would be best accompanied by a nice cup of tea.

Dir: Burt Kennedy
Star: Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, Ernest Borgnine, Strother Martin

Warrior Queen (1978)

  By

★½
“As dead as the ancient Britons.”

In the late seventies, British television was notable for series which generally kicked ass on the performance front, but suffered from woefully inadequate production values. The most well-known example is Doctor Who, but that was just the tip of a dramatic iceberg which included the likes of Blake’s 7 and this series: in some cases, you can look past or ignore the deficiencies, because the acting is good enough to counteract them. That, sadly, isn’t the case here, with Phillips (a compatriot of Diana Rigg and Glenda Jackson at RADA) sadly adrift as Boudicca, the queen of the Iceni who takes on the occupying Roman forces after her daughters are assaulted. Having enjoyed the 2003 version, with Alex Kingston in the title role, I thought I’d give this one a chance, but when a supposed army of 6,000 is represented by four chariots and, maybe, ten guys in animal skins, it’s hard not to notice.

Phillips is fine as the queen, possessing a certain royal gravitas that’s fitting. But the “warrior” part of the equation is all but neglected, with her fight against another tribe’s chief, to prove herself capable of leading the revolt, among the least-convincing in television history. She is also burdened with two daughters who appear largely to have strayed in from a family sit-com of the era, and Gothard as a loony Druid priest, perpetually burbling about “angering the Gods.” Perhaps the only other decent performance is Hawthorne as the Roman bureaucrat who is the trigger for, and the first to face, Boudicca’s wrath. He would go on to comedic stardom, playing Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Minister, though is best known worldwide as Dr. Cocteau in Demolition Man, and brings much the same combination of world-weariness and snooty arrogance to this role.

However, the absolute poverty-row level of costumes, sets and (in particular) the battle scenes are easily what will leave the most lasting impression, and I don’t mean that in a good way: it’s hard to say how it might ever have past muster, even in the days of a less-sophisticated viewing audience (I was 12, and certainly less-sophisticated!). The net result is that this has all the impact of something made on the cheap for showing to schools, and given the trouble I had retaining consciousness, would likely not have enlivened even the dullest of history lessons.

Dir: Michael Custance and Neville Green
Star: Sian Phillips, Michael Gothard, Patti Love, Nigel Hawthorne

Warrior Queen (2003)

  By

★★★½
“Rates much better as a drama than for historical accuracy.”

Probably best to approach this with few expectations of this being a factual representation of the time; more than once, it felt clearly like the writer was using the Roman occupation of Britain, and Boudica’s rebellion, as a metaphor for American’s involvement in Iraq. There are certainly enough anachronisms, particularly in the dialogue (the Roman Emperor chatting informally away with the leader of a British tribe, and references to “terrorists”), that it seems deliberate. The basic story is the one well-known of legend: after her husband’s death, and the raping of her daughters by the invading Romans, Boudica (Kingston) led her tribe in an initially successful revolt, only to be stopped when the full force of the Empire was turned on them.

There’s a lot of familiar faces here, most obviously Kingston, who is well-known (in this household, at least) as River Song from Doctor Who – I kept expecting Boudica to enter a scene and say, “Hello, sweetie!” But there’s also Potts, as a deeply creepy Emperor Nero, well before we knew him a nerd in Primeval, and Blunt, as one of Boudica’s daughters, has gone on to significant Hollywood fame. The performances are really what keeps this interesting: Kingston brings the right level of steely resolve to her role, and is particularly convincing when rousing her troops to battle. Equally as good is Michael Feast, as Roman general Suetonius, who is there because of a combination of “professional pride” and the Emperor’s whims, and puts across exactly the right sense of battle-weary experience.

What doesn’t work as well are the battles, in part because the budget for this falls well short of what we’re used to seeing in terms of the approximate period, e.g. Gladiator, 300. There are some moments of spectacle, such as a burning Roman encampment, or a plain covered with corpses, but the shortage of live extras is often embarrassingly obvious. They’re not well-shot either, with an irritating strobing effect which serves no purpose, and Boadica doesn’t do much actual fighting, mostly waving her sword from the back of a chariot [without spiked wheels, I was disappointed to note. Look, if you’re gonna play fast and loose with historical accuracy, you might as well include the coolest thing about the queen…]

Still, I can’t say we were bored, and the solid acting more than made up for the occasionally-shaky production values, though it is definitely important to go in to this, not expecting a Discovery channel documentary. Instead, this is Exhibit A, proving that when cinematic necessity and historical facts collide, the latter will almost always come off worse.

Dir: Bill Anderson
Star: Alex Kingston, Hugo Speer, Emily Blunt, Andrew Lee Potts

The Hike

  By

★★
“The Descent without the caves. Or monsters.”

Five young women head out into the country for a camping trip, led by Kate (Phythian), a former soldier who is stil traumatized by seeing her boyfriend killed in front of her while on a mission in the Middle East. She’s about the only member of the party who seems genuinely keen on the trip, and it’s not long before the others start to whine, demanding rest stops, and the hike is curtailed before the intended destination. At least the country is not entirely deserted, though the creepy East European guy and his two women isn’t exactly sociable. But at least there are the three nice guys, out for a spot of rock-climbing, led by Ethan (Loyd Holmes), so there’s always that. And if things end up getting dicey – say, if one of the women vanishes mysteriously, while out gathering firewood, the others can turn to Ethan and his chums for help. Right? Right?

With a bit more thought on characterization and dialogue, this could have been an effective exercise. When I say, “a bit,” I probably mean “an awful lot,” as apart from Kate, the women are at best flat and two-dimensional, and at worst, actively and significantly irritating. Do women really act and sound like that? It may be relevant the script was written by two men, and there are few surprises to be found here (especially if you’ve seen Eden Lake, a similarly-themed “rural nightmare” flick from the UK). The progression is so obvious that it doesn’t even count as a spoiler to reveal that Kate ends up the ‘final girl’, and it’s likely significant that the more the film focuses on her struggles for survival, the more effective it becomes, to the point where the last reel eventually delivers the tension and energy I’d hoped to see from the beginning.

It definitely does owe some inspiration to The Descent: I don’t think it’s coincidence that Shauna McDonald has a small role as Ethan’s wife. However, I also note Nedeljacova’s role in the Hostel series, which perhaps has rather more in common with this, as the movie relishes the rape and degradation elements to a greater degree than I like. Phythian does what she can with the role and comes over as a decent heroine, who goes through hell and back again over the course of 24 hours. However, there are plenty of better entries in the genre, and little otherwise to recommend this one.

Dir: Rupert Bryan
Star: Zara Phythian, Ben Loyd Holmes, Barbara Nedeljacova, Daniel Caren

The Holding

  By

★★★★
“Hell hath no fury like a mother defending her children.”

Cassie Naylor (Wareing) is struggling to keep her head above water on the farm she’s now running almost single-handed, eight months after her husband vanished. What the locals don’t know is that she buried him in a remote spot on the Derbyshire moors, with the help of part-time farmhand Cooper (Bradley), for reasons not initially clear. The arrival of a transient, Aden (Regan, looking not unlike a rougher version of Gerard Butler), seems like a godsend, and they agree he can work in exchange for food and lodgings. However, it’s not long before Aden’s less-desirable tendencies start to show through. While he’s fiercely loyal – dispatching anyone whom he perceives as a threat – he seems to regard Cassie and her two daughters as “his” family, and seems to know rather too much about them.

Clearly influenced by The Stepfather, this is still its own creature, with Cassie a strong, independent heroine of the first degree, who will do absolutely anything to protect her children, even if one is a Bible-thumper and the other an immensely-irritating teenage brat. Indeed, it’s probably important to note that [here be spoilers, highlight the text if you want to read it] all the women survive, and only men die. How much of this was the input of a woman director – itself, fairly unusual for the genre – is open to discussion. Another big plus is that the film doesn’t rely too much on the stupidity of the main characters, which is a common flaw; their behaviour here is relatively logical, though there were times when the victims did not take an avenue of escape that appeared to be open to them.

The look of the film is impressive, with a lush pastoral feel early on, that eventually turns into a dark, rain-drenched nightmare as things become bloody. However, the main strength are performances which are believable, on both sides of the fence, effectively ramping up the tension as the body-count increases. It builds to a satisfactorily invigorating battle, in which Cassie has exhausted all legitimate hope of rescue and is thrown entirely on to her own tenacity and survival skills. Ellen Ripley would certainly approve, even if here, the monster being opposed for maternal reasons has a human face.

Dir: Susan Jacobson
Star: Kierston Wareing, Vincent Regan, David Bradley, Skye Lourie