Cast: Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Judy Davis, Felicity Jones,
Characters: Johnny, Nancy, Benedict, Julianne,
Style and class exude from the very un-David Hare opening credits – more Inspector Clouseau than David Hare.
Snappy dialogue:
“Don’t you have any faith Johnny?”
“The sun will rise in the morning, I’m going to have a drink at six.”
“Many members of your church are there?”
“Lots, most people actually.”
The music tells us everything we need to know – the ‘sax and wane’ of the opening are replaced by chilling, brooding, violins.
The real intrigue arrives just at the right moment – it builds slowly and entertains – a nice balance between cinematic thriller (quick) and slow-broiled TV drama (slow).
Nighy is perfect – dapper, charming, fleet-footed, but detached, lonely, more and more desperate and lost, and less and less able to hide it.
But in the end this really is just a good two-part TV drama – it doesn’t have enough scope to be truly cinematic; it isn’t quite Le Carre, Constant Gardner, etc. It is smaller than that, but no less compelling and entertaining in its way.
It wraps up quite nicely, but it is all talking, there isn’t much fighting or twisting. Everybody seems quite content to settle things in a fairly amicable manner.
So he just lets them all off? He allows them to get away with torture and corruption and civil rights infringement so he can give a lover a nice going away present?!?
No comments:
Post a Comment