A half an hour into this I asked Q if she thought anything would actually happen. By the time it does, we're ahead of the film, and have already guessed it, and looking forward to the next episode of Trigger Point. The story of one day in the life of a maid in 1924 and how it changes her would have made a great 20 minute short. It's so slow.. Not that I have anything against a slow film like a Malick or Tarkovsky... It's just this is irritatingly slow.
In Alice Birch's adaptation of Graham Swift's novel, Odessa Young plays the maid who rendezvous with Josh O'Connor, then spends much of the film wondering around the house in the nude. Meanwhile her employers, Colin Firth and Olivia Colman, await the youth at a lunch in Henley. His parents have lost two other sons in the war, the others have also lost two and Colman is overwhelmed by grief. Firth expresses his by a kind of forced bonhomie, but he cares about the girl, perhaps as he's lost everything - in the best moment, he is glad she's leaving to go and work in a bookshop. I also liked the very slow scene in which she serves a group of friends - including Josh - at dinner. So it's not a bad film by any means, just... too long by an hour and ten minutes. And lacking in energy. Glenda Jackson, who plays the older version, was paid by the second.
DP was Jamie Ramsay, editor Emilie Orsini, music Morgan Kibby.
With Sope Dirisu, Emma D'Arcy, Patsy Ferran, Emily Woof.
Birch wrote Lady Macbeth and Normal People. You know, the more I think about it, I really didn't mind it. It does manage to actually tell an entire life story, so it's not one day. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. Perhaps I'll catch it again when it surfaces on Channel 4 (who made it with the BFI).
I have to say the DVD cover presents a most unflattering image of Ms. Young:
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