Johnny Depp has become, in his young middle age, like a star of the movies’ golden period
Public Enemies
Music
this was a triumph of eye-popping production and exhausting choreography
Madonna
Theatre
If his smug stage persona is tricky to warm to, his skill, and the snappiness of Andy Nyman’s direction, are spot-on
Derren Brown
If you are feeling totally fed up with your lot at the moment with the economic squeeze - go see this film
I thought this was an excellent, powerful production. The staging and acting were superb, it is well worth going to see
Absolutely AMAZING show that went like a train for three hours solid and didn't waiver once!
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Nicolas Roeg.
Cast: Kelly Reilly, Miranda Richardson, Rita Tushingham, Donald Pleasance, Oscar Pearce
Description: Beautiful architect Liffey and her boyfriend Richard abandon the rat race for the tranquillity of the Irish countryside, where they intend to refurbish a ramshackle cottage that once belonged to Mabs Tucker and her oddball mother Molly. When Liffey unexpectedly falls pregnant, the Tucker women are certain that the newcomer has been blessed with the baby boy Mabs always wanted, and will still raise if they have anything to do with it. Liffey and Richard soon find themselves trapped in a tight-knit community stepped in myths, legends and dark magic.
Country: UK/IRE/CAN. 2007. 119mins
On the run: Kelly Reilly as an expectant mother under siege
Spying: Donald Sutherland plays Lars
Nicolas Roeg's first film for 12 years has an unborn baby as its central character. The baby has been conceived by liffey (Kelly reilly), an architect who, when renovating an old house in Ireland, has a fling with the sexy husband of Mabs, her nextdoor neighbour (Miranda richardson).
Mabs is furious because she wanted a child herself, having lost a son in a fire some years earlier. So is her witch-like mother (rita Tushingham), who devises a few voodoo methods to try to prevent the birth.
We discover that liffey is actually pregnant with twins, one of whom is aborted. But the other remains in her womb. "life," as roeg says, "is so full of stories of love, jealousy, hope and sex, of horror, grief and joy. But however they are told, they all begin and end the same way."
When those stories are being filmed by the director who made Performance, Don't look Now and The Man Who Fell to Earth, you can be sure that surprises are in store.
In Puffball, Dan Weldon's adaptation of his mother Fay's novel, roeg inserts a series of slightly weird pieces of film which have sperm swimming towards wombs and babies cuddled up in them. The result is what one might call a kind of pregnant thriller, with plenty of sex thrown in. It might almost be entitled Hot Comfort Farm.
No one could call this roeg's best work but it still shows us a director who, though now 80, has a few tricks up his sleeve. Donald Sutherland, almost a roeg regular, has a couple of scenes as liffey's visiting boss, but I'm not quite sure why.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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