Incendiary Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
The truth can blow you apart.
An adulterous woman's life is torn apart when her husband and infant son are killed in a suicide bombing at a soccer match.
| Michelle Williams | Young Mother |
| Ewan McGregor | Jasper Black |
| Matthew Macfadyen | Terrance |
| Sidney Johnston | The Boy |
| Jonathan Andrews | Policeman |
| Robin Berry | Dazed Supporter |
| Gavin Brocker | Detective Tony Jackson |
| Nicholas Courtney | Archbishop of Canterbury |
| Chris Ellis | The Dead Son |
| Monty Fromant | Security Guard |
| Nicholas Gleaves | Lenny |
| Edward Hughes | Danny Walsh |
| Usman Khokhar | Bomber's Son |
| Chris Mansfield | Police Officer |
| Joe Marshall | Gary |
| Sharon Maguire |
6.50 out of 10 (486 votes)
Visitor Reviews
TRULY GREAT!!! Ignore the Idiotic 'Reviews'!
posted on 02 Aug 2009People who don't make even the slightest effort to understand a film, should at least refrain from commenting on it as they only reveal their complete ignorance.I don't know what kind of a zombie one must be to concentrate on the accents, the cast, the car or whatever and not be able to feel the slightest bit of emotional involvement with the characters and the story?I'm not even going into what makes the film great and why one should see it. Experiences of grief, sorrow and hopelessness cannot be put easily into words.But the film offers much more deeper insights than those alone and also a lot of hope for the future.It asks the right questions about where we the common unimportant people stand in the "World Wide War on Terror" and even has the courage to answer them correctly.Go and watch it and try to put yourself into the story, because weather you like it or not, you ARE part of it.
Beautifully shot but slow and unfocused
posted on 07 Jul 2009This film is about a woman who lost her husband and son in a terror attack. Her life goes into a mess as she deals with her loss and hunts for the truth.I have mixed feelings for "Incendiary". On one hand, it is beautifully shot. Every scene is nicely planned and constructed. Camera work is great too. On the other hand, the plot is confusing and strange. The pacing is excruciatingly slow, with a lot of repetitive scenes (such as London burning).I also think "Incendiary" is not focused enough, as it tries to deal with too many topics including grief, guilt, quest for truth and the road to healing. If the filmmakers only focused on grief and guilt, without the subplots of the anti-terrorist guy or the suspect's family, I would have enjoyed the film more. Despite of Michelle Williams' superb acting, I find "Incendiary" disappointing and boring.
Everyone is a critic!
posted on 25 Jun 2009I have seen a negative review on this movie and I have to say that I am very tired of people picking apart movies to show how smart they think they are! This was a tragic and beautifully filmed movie that reminded me so much of The Sweet Hereafter. I believe that some people have a hard time watching others go through tragedy and grief and are uncomfortable expressing themselves. This movie drew a lump to my throat the size of a golf ball and made me hug my son extra hard at bedtime. Michelle Williams gives another outstanding performance and Ewan MacGregor is, as always, a complete pleasure to watch on screen. This film will come out on DVD this year and I would urge anyone with a heart to embrace it.
Pretentious melodrama - slooow, boooring and cliché-filled
posted on 05 Jun 2009An awful waste of 1 hour and 35 minutes. Don't do this to yourself, unless you really enjoy pretentious melodramas with little or no story.According to the producers, and IMDb, this is a "Drama/Romance/Thriller". Make no mistake - it is not romance, and most certainly not a thriller."Like watching paint dry" is an old saying, and probably as meaningless a way of spending time as watching "Incendiary". Still, many of us are likely never to have sat down for an hour and a half to watch paint dry, whereas we have all seen the clichées and the pretentious rubbish which makes up this utterly awful movie. We've seen it all before, though fortunately rarely in such a mindblowingly slooow pace and without virtually any story or message behind it.I is usually a bad sign when, 20 minutes into a film, still nothing has happened, and the information conveyed would easily fit into less than a minute. In this case, it is indeed fully indicative of what's to come: more of the same.The story as such can be told in it's entirety in a few sentences and scenes, which in fact it also is - the remainder of the of the movie just consists of endless, clichéd retrospectives, soul searching dialogs, marathon shots of facial expressions, you name it...Some have criticized the plausibility and credibility of the storyline, very often a problem with today's movies, but that's hardly where this movie falls down - it's in the fact that the story could easily have been told in ten minutes. It would still have been pointless, un-interesting and without meaning or message, but at least it would have been over quickly...
Not melodrama meaning bad but melodrama meaning good
posted on 24 May 2009I went home and really appreciated the time I could spend with my young son after watching this. We played in the garden for at least an hour longer, everything he did was so much more vivid than if I had not watched this film. Many people have mentioned 'Melodrama' in their comments but usually with a sneer. Melodrama is not necessary a bad thing, it has a place if used well. This is a film about grief directed in the same manner as Bridget Jones. People who enjoyed Bridget Jones, Love Actually etc will find an emotional wrench with the mothers strength and weakness, as I did. A Mike Leigh type director would have made a very different film but that movie would have been unrelenting and harrowing by being much closer to the real life experiences of people suffering loss. I believe the filmmakers heart is in the right place and is not purposefully manipulating her audience. It must have taken much persistence and a strong belief to get this movie made, I imaging that it had a bumpy ride to get green lit. I'm glad they succeeded.
Masterful inward looking piece full of emotion and insight
posted on 08 May 2009I actually find myself pitying the clowns who don't get/won't get this film. They are either brain dead or dead at the core... because not being touched by the events strung together here is really not paying attention to the film or to the current state of things. The acting is superb by everyone, obviously especially Michelle Williams. It's a gutsy move to bring in an American to play this blue collar East Ender but she pulled it off with astonishing aplomb. The photography is sensational and helps the emotional story emerge... that is, if you're interested in a story that deals in emotions, which is to say people, which is to say drama. If you don't want drama or people or emotions this is not the film for you. Perhaps no film is for you, but fear not, there are video games for you.
Bridget Jones hits the nail in her head
posted on 16 Apr 2009Where do i begin? Where does it end?It is well known throughout the land that the face of the devil wears a hockey mask(just a reference), devil's actions are cowardice and backstabbing and of course Mr Red Horny Bastard works with an evil masterplan viciously crafted by him and his followers. Well, call me crazy but that's the villain of the movie. He blows up a football stadium full of heated Arsenal fans without remorse. And the badly made tearjerker begins with no end. Mommyyyyy..... Mommy indeed, because the director needs her mommy to spank her a bit and teach her some brains. The editing department was irrelevant, must be the same one who edited Pretty Woman or close,you need a reason? I'll give you one, it's the emotional motivation to sense the woman's despair and loss through the beach,the sea and the yelling-mommy kid ,better yet we were forced to feel the one-dimensional space these characters occupied. Was this a propaganda? Oh, i'll just let you decide on that. If you want me to force an opinion on you, call me in xxx.bin.666.laden or e-mail: maguire@sheepmentality.com .The Incendiary had no fire but all the villagers carried torches ,this was a paper world and such as one ,it is real easy to be burned
Yes, Virginia, it's Muslims blowing-up innocent people.
posted on 10 Apr 2009Unlike most of the soft-headed liberals in Hollywood, this British film places the blame for Muslim terrorist attacks on.. guess who?..Muslims! Even more specifically, Osama Bin Ladin.When a young London woman loses her 4 year old son and her husband in a Suicide Bomber attack at a sports arena, her whole world falls apart. Much of this is done with realism and sensitivity, even though it gets a bit muddled by the end. The moral might be that in times of extreme crisis, it pays to be a woman of incredible sexual magnetism, because then you'll have the able-bodied help of more than one handsome, anxiously willing man.There's more than one reason to enjoy a movie. In this one, Montana-born Michelle Williams has an overload of sex appeal in every moment, in REAL ways, not in Mae West style phony baloney. Whether she's wearing casual or dress-up, loose or snug, cover-everything or cover little, happy, sad, playing with her kid, she has a magnetism most real men would do anything-at-all to get close to. Oh, and an effective actress too. I'd like to see more of this one.
whose babe ?
posted on 21 Nov 2008I wonder if whose the babe the woman had at the end of the movie. may he be from reporter or his husband? the movie was really good. a good drama. the situation of the woman was terrible. while you having sex with another man your husband and son blew up. and you saw that explosion on TV while you were getting dirty with another man. Michelle Williams was very beautiful. and her acting was very realistic. and her inner voice that against Asama very meaningful. generally the movie was good. It does make me sad that I found this film so unenjoyable, because it was obvious that the director was very nervous and had put her soul and time into it's making.
The Many Faces of Terrorism
posted on 19 Nov 2008INCENDIARY comes as a surprise release on DVD: did it even have a theatrical release? Based on a book by Chris Cleave and adapted for the screen by director Sharon Maguire, this little film is notable on many levels. First, the story is another look at the topic of terrorism, revealing the effects of these senseless catastrophes much like America's 9/11 tragedy on all players - the survivors of the victims, the survivors of the perpetrators, and the way so much of life changes in the wake of explosive surprises and the strength to survive in the aftermath of these traumas. A Young Mother (an astonishingly fine performance by Michelle Williams) opens the film with thoughts and demonstrations of the love she holds for her young son (Sidney Johnson) while she copes with the too frequent absences of her husband Lenny (Nicholas Gleaves): Lenny is part of London's Anti-terrorism division of the police force. The feeling of unfulfilled desires by this isolated young woman are magnified as she watches her newspaper reporter neighbor Jasper Black (Ewan McEwan) across the street escorting yet another tipsy dolly into his apartment. Lenny leaves, the mother lovingly puts her son to bed, then she goes out to a bar where she encounters none other than Jasper trying to tempt her to his lair. The needy mother submits to Jasper's intentions and in a brief moment of desire succumbs to her physical needs. Another day passes and as Lenny and their son depart for the soccer game, the mother is again willingly seduced by Jasper, only to have their assignation interrupted by an explosion at the stadium where Lenny and her son are watching the game. The guilt-ridden adulterous mother flees to the stadium where she is injured attempting to find her family. Now hospitalized with injuries she faces visits from Jasper as well as from her husband's co- worker Terrance (Matthew Macfadyen). Once released form the hospital she discovers the withheld name and picture of one of the suicide bombers responsible for the attack and deaths - and she learns that the bomber was a suspect being watched by Terrance who could possibly have prevented her loss. She learns the name of the suicide bomber's family, meets the bomber's son (Usman Khokhar) and wife (Sasha Behar) and eventually allows herself to meet them. The consequences of all of this information and chance meetings and the afterburn of her association with Jasper and Terrance (both of whom profess love for her) make for a startling ending, but an ending that for once helps us understand the psychology of our current world of terrorism threat and the need to heal and move on. The performances are excellent, with special attention paid to the gifts of Michelle Williams whose perfect British accent will be a surprise to most viewers: this is a career altering role for her. The film develops slowly, deals with a lot of internal dialog, but in the end the effect is one of powerful impact. Highly recommended. Grady Harp
My wife and I think this is a pretty good movie.
posted on 11 Nov 2008I went cautiously into watching this movie because of a moderate number of comments that it wasn't very good, including my neighbors. But both my wife and I think it is a fine movie.It all revolves around Michelle Williams as the Young Mother in London, with a four old son and apparently happily married. But the husband is in a dangerous occupation, he works on the London bomb squad, a very tense job. When he comes home and his wife asks how his day was, his usual answer is "I'm still here." We figure there will be a tragedy in his job, but that never happens.A playboy neighbor who lives in the housing across the street is Ewan McGregor as Jasper Black. He is bold in his approach, he takes a liking to this young mother and lets her know, even though she is clear that she is married and in the pub waiting for her husband.The third key character is Matthew Macfadyen as Terrance, the London anti-terror policeman and apparently her husband's supervisor.This movie is mostly a character study of the Young Mother and how her decisions and the events of the day affect her. After a tragedy she is forced to re-examine her whole existence. Watching the movie, with Michelle Williams speaking so easily in a British accent I wondered if I had mistaken her origin. But no, she is from Kalispel Montana, she is just a good actress.SPOILERS: She knows she is not a "good" person by common definitions. She easily gives in to Jasper's charms and starts an affair with him, even though she believes she loves her husband. And she has no guilt about it until, while having wild, rough sex with Jasper and the TV on, witnesses multiple explosions at the soccer game where her husband and young son are. Terror grips her, she makes her way to the stadium where 1003 were killed, but cannot find her son and her husband. They are among the dead. She is in shock. Terrance tries to comfort her, and then tells her he thinks of being with her. Meanwhile Jasper, a reporter, begins his own investigation of the bombings, and captures the face of one Muslim terrorist right before the bomb on him went off. It turns out Terrance had been tracking him for several years. Terrance stayed away from the game that day even though he had tickets because they had information a stadium may be bombed, although they didn't know which one. Had he warned his friends her husband and son would be alive.
expectations..
posted on 22 Sep 2008i think the main problem with the movie isn't the movie, it's that people are going in expecting a thriller instead of a drama. yes the major plot points could be covered in 5 minutes.. but that's not the point of drama. your average thriller is about things that happen and happen to have people in them. this movie is about the people and how they feel and cope when something momentous happens. if you appreciate that you'll appreciate the movie better, or not watch it cos it's not something that appeals to you.. and that's fair enough.As far as the film goes, Michelle Williams carries it well. The accent's fine and the various states she goes through as she tries to deal with what has happened never feel you leaving disconnected or not understanding how she got there.McGregor is his usual charming self, tho his is not really a major part (likewise MacFadyen), this is a movie about the mother and so these two don't get an awful lot of screen time.The one fault i'd say is that the passage of time is not particularly well expressed particularly right at the end of the film when what seems to be a present day Ewan is wearing the exact same outfit as in the next scene which must be set sometime after.Regardless, it's a decent movie, but requiring empathy.. so if you prefer action flicks, watch something else.
Incendiary lives up to its title
posted on 06 Sep 2008What nonsense negativism from Steve "Cod" Carver in his post which does not even seem to be aware that the script is directly adapted from the celebrated Chris Cleave novel of the same name published on the same day as London's actual "7/7" attacks in 2005. This was one of my favorite's from Sundance 2008, and as an accredited film critic I am looking forward to the 25th anniversary edition in a few weeks time. I'm now sorry I missed "The Escapist" at Sundance which has also not yet been released commercially this side of the Atlantic. Incendiary is the first in a string of excellent Michelle Williams' performances, of which the best by far is in Wendy and Lucy. Comments here are always subjective. But when they slag others' professional judgments on the basis of little knowledge of either cinema or the world, they should be kept to oneself.
What The...?
posted on 30 Jul 2008I've got good news, & I've got bad news.The good? Michelle is very fine - convincing sad mommy, Barbie cute, emoticon deluxe.E.McG - not around enough. There must have been an editing mess with this one. The first part of the film suggests he would have had a bigger role. Our loss.That's the good.The bad: THIS IS NOT AN ACTION MOVIE!!!! It's a ruminative, junky, maudlin, meandering mess masquerading as an action movie. No guts, no punch.It takes a long time to say - & you will be half asleep at this point - that, gee, Osama should just listen to the sad mommas out there & he wouldn't be such a bad dude.NO. This is idiotic. Terrorists are NOT good daddies. Not possible.The whole thing takes a long time to develop & then falls apart in semi-bathetic babbling. Like I said, wha' happened?
Self-destructs (spoilers throughout)
posted on 04 Jul 2008From the director of Bridget Jones' Diary comes a film about terrorism. If you think that sounds like a recipe for cinematic gold then you must be demented.As you'd expect from someone who made such a wretched piece of fluff, the emotions here are laid on rather thick. This isn't a film that knows a whole lot about subtlety. They might as well have just issued a box of hankies at the door.The film begins with an exceedingly cute child having fun with his mummy. He's so damn cute and so damn lovable that you know he's not going to make it through the film alive. And then when you realise that the film is called Incendiary, you know he's going to get blown into a million little pieces.Now having your son die in a terrorist attack is bad enough, but the film decides to make it several degrees worse. First of all, the mother in this film is no longer that enamoured with her husband. Therefore their relationship is rather loveless. However, not to fear, a sleazy journalist played by Ewan McGregor pops up. And no sooner have they exchanged a few words than they're exchanging bodily fluids on the young mother's sofa. Crikey. And as they're humping and pumping, they have a football game on the television. And at this game are the woman's husband and young son. And would you believe it, as they're doing the dirty, the stadium goes ka-boom and it's goodbye husband and son.After this you'd kind of think that the woman would suffer some pretty serious psychosexual problems. But this doesn't stop the woman from having sex with the head of the anti-terrorist unit (the woman's husband was in bomb disposal, so this guy was a work colleague). And this guy seems really nice. He just wants to look after her. Nevermind that he's dull as ditchwater and that he loves caravans. He's just a good, honest guy. Well, or so you'd think. I guess the woman should have noted the fact that the man has a beard, and as we all know, men with beards always have something to hide. Why else would they cover themselves in facial shrubbery? You see, the man knew that the terrorist attack was going to happen and did nothing to stop it. Oh, that's pretty bad, isn't it? You were cheating on your husband as he went up in flames and now you've slept with the man who could have stopped it from happening. Maybe those psychosexual problems will finally kick in.If this all sounds far-fetched, it's because it is. But the film isn't finished with the nonsense. The woman strikes up a friendship with the young son of one of the bombers. Okay, this has potential for bonding and mutual healing. But no, there's a sequence where the two of them are at Waterloo train station. The kid is still unaware that his daddy was one of the bombers – he thinks he's just gone away – and as he's waiting for the woman to buy tickets, he sees newspapers with his dad's face plastered all over them. Needless to say he's a bit upset and begins behaving a little erratically. He then runs away. The police see this and because he's Asian and has a backpack, they take chase. The woman chases as well, and they all end up on an empty train platform. Every party shouts a lot, and as the boy reaches into his jacket, the police prepare to shoot. But as a marksman pulls the trigger, the woman steps into his sights and gets shot in the head by mistake. Holy Jean Charles de Menezes, Batman, the police screwed up again! But don't fear. The woman only gets grazed by a bullet so everything is hunky-dory.Amongst all this ridiculous melodrama there are a few good scenes. The best one is when the mother seriously begins to lose the plot and thinks that her son has come back. She spends all her time in the flat playing with him. She then leaves to get some food and the spell is broken when she actually has some real human interaction. When she rushes back her son is no longer there and she's devastated.However, this scene leads directly to another one of the film's maudlin flights of fancy. In response to the tragedy, a barrage balloon for every victim hangs in the sky with a picture of the victim on it. This to me sounds like an awful idea. Could you imagine that? You're just trying to get over the ordeal and you look out of the window and see your little Billy grinning from the sky. Yeah, nice one.And so the woman realises that her son is really dead and decides to visit his barrage balloon. And to do so she has to stand on a tall roof and teeter on the edge. Will she kill herself or not? Now the barrage balloons I hated, but we now have another one of the film's few decent sequences. We see the boy and the father talking about the Great Fire of London. The boy asks what they did back then, and the father says that everyone had a cup of tea. We then have a voice-over where the woman says that many people have tried to destroy this city but no one has succeeded. Every time someone tries to knock it down, we rebuild. And that's what she's got to do with her life. She's got to rebuild it. The film didn't deserve to generate any emotion, but a love of my home city meant that for once I actually felt something in this preposterous movie.
Cleverly plotted star-vehicle, and Williams fully delivers.
posted on 08 Jun 2008My father always told me to be wary of reviewers who label their object of review as one which is *multi-layered* in a negative tone ("the fatal problem is that this is a film with an identity crisis", according to some Time-Out hack). It tells you one thing: That these reviewers have problems with understanding complex issues. Phrases like "this film doesn't know what it wants to be" etc., might've sounded 'phat!' ten years ago, but are sooooooo nineties.Especially if said reviewers get essential story details wrong, one should be very mistrustful about their supposed skills, and whether they'd actually SEEN the film in the first place.I'm referring of course, to the mother's meeting with the bombers son, which was of course, the completely logical conclusion of the journalists' actions, which themselves were borne out of a desire to win the mother back, which was totally understandable because of his guilt and her being highly attractive AND a damsel in distress, too.This is clearly a film about guilt, both hers and his (and the coppers'), and dealing with grief and death of loved ones. The fact that there is some sort of institutionalized screw ups isn't there to show conspiracy, but to show that we all messed up at times. The references to the shooting/execution by the police of the innocent Brazilian in the subway after 7/7 are clear and intentional.This is a great film, I really dunno what everybody is on about. Aside from the whole accent thing (we know that Williams' accent is fake, it is not perfect, but adequate. If we hadn't known that she was an American, most of the non-Brits would've never guessed) this is a near flawless film, story-wise. Williams again, delivers on the acting skills. She has been a very talented actress since childhood, whose talent can be obscured by her astonishing beauty. It can be more of an obstacle to her work, than an asset. Sometimes.Oh well. Even Michelle Williams can't have it all .... ;)The Melancholic Alcoholic.
Very good melodrama
posted on 27 May 2008First, let me say that I'm not usually into these types of film. I prefer the popcorn movies with lots of action and not too much to think about. Every once in a while, however, I'll rent a "high-brow" movie and often I am bored to tears. Not with this movie. I am unfamiliar with most of Michelle Williams work, but she does an excellent job here displaying a woman dealing with a deep guilt, and remorse over the loss of her son (she doesn't seem to miss her husband much, however- but I digress). I honestly believe that if you cannot relate to her character here, then you are a soul-less creature and definitely have forgotten the tragedies of 9-11-2001. Terrorism is just murder on a grand scale, and murder benefits no one. Grief is universal. Go back into your caves and let those who still have the capacity to feel relish in the tragedy portrayed by an up-and coming actress. See this one!
Sharon Maguire should stick to comedy and not sappy melodrama
posted on 21 May 2008I was at the premiere of this film last night at the Sundance Film Festival. It was obvious that Sharon was very nervous, but she was gracious and funny and I could see how that transferred to her film Bridget Jones's Diary which I loved.This, however, couldn't be further removed from that. To use one of Sharon's own terms, as a friend put it, the whole film was "eggy". Overdone, pleading with the audience to cry for sympathy for the main character. I don't really even know where to start. The little boy was adorable and precocious, almost to the point of being cartoon-like. Michelle Williams' hangdog "I'm sad and smoking a cigarette" schtick soon became old.The film starts out alright enough, with the setup of the husband who's always working, the connection between mother and son, etc. Suddenly she is in bed with the very on-point Ewan McGregor, and a bomb explodes at the soccer stadium where her husband and son are. This moment is good - frightening, shocking. But the heavy overlays of jaunting piano music and slow motion running or crying or whatever are so saturated that it's impossible to really connect.As most of us know, symbolism is best when subtle and stripped down. Well be prepared to have it wacked over your head in this film. Her son has a stuffed bunny animal that he always carries, and after he's dead of course this becomes the representation of her son. They reference the bunny so many times that it's no longer a special memento. Once she starts stalking the son of one of the suicide bombers, it just fails to make sense any longer. She predictably bonds with the son out of nowhere (I literally leaned over and said "She's going to buy him a cricket bat" to a friend after the boy mentioned his dad was supposed to buy him one for his birthday...and lo and behold, she did) and then suddenly there's a standoff at the train station where she gets apparently shot in the head and has not a scratch to show for it. An additional thing that bothered me is her character apparently has all these amazing traits that men are dying for. Ewan seems suddenly "turned around" from a womanizing yuppie telling her that she's just so different from everyone he knows. Her husband's old boss tells her she's an amazing woman and spews ridiculous romantic crap about "laying in a caravan with the dust particles in the air" or "taking all the hundreds of pieces of your broken heart and putting it back together". What is so remarkable about this woman? She's just gone through a terrible loss, but that has nothing to do with her character or personality. Nothing shown tells me that she is deserving of this attention.This combined with the in and out narration, apparently letters dedicated to Osama Bin Laden, the hot-air balloon with the picture of her son, the underuse of the engaging Ewan McGregor character, the random relationship with the bomber's son, and the obvious "Oscar nomination" scene of Michelle Williams screaming "My baby! My baby!" all comes together for one totally over the top melodrama that leaves the viewer with no real connection to anyone. If they had stripped it down by about 90% it would be watchable. It does make me sad that I found this film so unenjoyable, because it was obvious that the director was very nervous and had put her soul and time into it's making. However, I don't see any way to fix the many glaring issues there are. Instead of seeing this, I would recommend popping in Bridget Jones's Diary and enjoying Sharon Maguire in her best medium.
Reply to Steve Carver
posted on 11 May 2008It never seems for me to find some obscure film from the U.K. or even here in America that places itself in a situation simple human nature. You ran on and compared this modern day tragedy to Bridget Jones Diary. Personally I detest the Bridget Jones Diary whereas in this film you find common day people catching themselves in a common day probable tragedy. The characters you mentioned played by Ewan MacGregor and Matthew Macfadayen, one who is not only caught in the candidness of Michelle Williams character, but also her husband's Supervisor giving his personal tickets away to save his own carcass based on probabilities.I have suffered a modern day tragedy and if not for my family could easily seem myself wrapped up in my daughters personal items. Your complete and total insufferable ability to see the human nature side of this movie makes me wonder why you even watched it. I have many friends scattered throughout the UK and even a London Police Officer who speaks of the many things that happen on a daily work day for him. So perhaps you should climb out of your dungeon and take heart to the last words spoken in the letter to Mr. Osama. Because it is truly obvious you did not understand the plea to listen to the voices of the children and perhaps together we could speak of peace for it is the children that carry and must live in this shattered world we now live in.The movie was touching especially to one who has lost through accident or currently war related reasons. The issues they speak of in getting through the grief are true and do work for many. As I said before I am not one who would commit adultery but realize that people are different and suffer issues and can see clearly how such a transgression could have happen. It has been said that it is not man that preys on the broken heart of a woman but the evil within the man.
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Cod Mockney Melodrama
posted on 22 Aug 2009This cod mockney melodrama from the director of Bridget Jones Diary fails at every level. It's clearly a film involving working class characters made by middle class people with both characters and plot lacking any authenticity and credibility whatsoever. In fact, the basic premise of Bridget Jones is transposed to this disastrous attempt at making a serious drama. Instead of writing a diary she writes letters to Osama Bin Laden. Instead of getting caught in a love triangle between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant she gets caught in a love triangle with two equally wet englishmen, uncomfortably played by Ewan MacGregor and Matthew Macfadayen, and all this, after her poor husband and son have been blown to bits in an unconvincing attack on Arsenal football stadium whilst she was shagging the local taloid newspaper reporter! The mawkish sentimentality that ensues is unbearable. In a preposterous celebration of London's blitz spirit, the faces of the victims are printed on the side of WWII air balloons which float above the city in every shot. And Michelle Williams, who miraculously found her sons toy rabbit in the ruins of the football stadium, clutches it to her chest in almost every scene. I find it hard to believe that this ill conceived script ever made it past treatment stage, particularly when so many established UK film companies like CH4 were involved in its development and finance. I find it equally hard to believe that the film was selected to screen at prestigious festivals like Sundance.This film is a worrying indictment of the failings of a the British film industry.