O’Toole shines in Dean Spanley
metrowebukmetroThursday 11 Dec 2008 4:50 pm
http://metro.co.uk/2008/12/11/otoole-shines-in-dean-spanley-237659/
This light comic scenario, one that’s outlandishly original with more than a whiff of whimsy, stars Sam Neill as an Edwardian church dean who agrees to dine with Fisk Junior (Jeremy Northam), if Fisk procures his favourite tipple, a rare Tokay.
Fisk has long been curious about the dean and interest turns to obsession when the latter reverts to his former life after a sip of wine. To reveal more is to spoil the eccentric conceit of this lovingly created world.
Humour is wonderfully unforced and Peter O’Toole finds one of his finest roles in Fisk Senior. This film is so endearing you’ll want to pop it in your pocket and carry it round forever.
(2)
TV: Fiona’s Story only told half the tale
metrowebukmetroSunday 31 Aug 2008 6:26 pm
http://metro.co.uk/2008/08/31/tv-fionas-story-only-told-half-the-tale-438674/
You sometimes get the feeling that the internet has made criminals of us all. Who hasn’t chanced across a dodgy image while surfing innocently for garden gnomes in action poses and found their finger itching to click a link that could lead who knows where?
They used to say they can’t touch you for it but these days they can. The nethead cops are lurking in your hard drive, tracking your YouTube videos, keeping tabs on your music downloads and generally cranking up 21st-century paranoia levels. Give in to temptation, whisper the web police, and you will pay.
Into this moral and legal minefield waded Fiona’s Story, a drama ‘inspired by many true stories’, which charted the disintegration of an apparently happy marriage following the husband’s arrest on suspicion of downloading child porn.
Was he guilty? Why had he done it? Was it all a horrible mistake? The questions tumbled over each other at the outset. Frustratingly, Fiona’s Story left those questions hanging, leaving aching great chasms of plot that you had to fill in yourselves.
Had Jeremy Northam’s Simon downloaded a few pictures of teenage girls or was he into hardcore child porn? Was he a monster or misunderstood? I’m still wondering because Fiona’s Story focused on shadowy suspicions and derailed lives and steered clear of cold, hard facts. Despite impressive performances, it felt hollow at the core.
It was the assumption of Simon’s guilt at the angry heart of Kate Gabriel’s script that served to undermine its credibility. Gina McKee was moving as the understandably anguished Fiona, the mother of three young daughters whose world collapses around her and who becomes an unwitting victim of misplaced loyalty. But by only seeing her side of events, it was a tale half told.
All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt. (Charles M. Schulz)
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