‘Another masculinity in cinema’: Josh O’Connor from The Crown in Between Lines

After Bang Gang and Les Filles du soleil, Eva Husson returns to cinema with a different proposition: Between the Lines. Adapted from the novel mother’s week This rather subtle and subtle period film by Graham Swift follows the journey of Jane, a young orphan maid in a small English town still devastated by the First War.

At a pivotal moment in her life, involving her lover Paul, the son of aristocrats, the film tells how she manages to escape her social status to fulfill herself as a writer. Backed by a polished production and a very carefully crafted aesthetic, this romantic drama benefits from haunting music and extremely careful editing.

between female empowerment and deconstructed masculinity

The actors Odessa Young (Murder Nation) and Josh O’Connor (The Crown), supported among others by Olivia Colman and Colin Firth, but also by Emma D’Arcy (Dragon House), are sublimated in this story thanks to very beautiful sequences. that Eva Hewson explores darker themes such as loss, mourning, death and regret.

Meeting during the 74th Cannes Film Festival, the director spoke about the topics he wanted to address between the lines:

“I like to explore the extremes and limits of life. So it’s both very far from my two previous films and at the same time, it’s a bit like the main themes: love, death, intimacy and how to survive the tragedy that is life. That is, how do we, small people, manage not to stop and not fall into despair? This is what really works for me. “

In the character of Jane, Eva Hewson also tells the story of the empowerment of a young woman “in the beginning with very difficult cards in her hand”, but who recovers and thrives thanks to the strength of her character, her outlook on life and vision. His defining choice:

“They abandoned her since birth, she was in an orphanage, they placed her as a maid. Back then, in the early 20th century, being a maid was still a guarantee of sexual exploitation… I read a lot. The maids diaries of that time and it turns everything, turns power every time. The system works for him.

We’re in a system where we feel completely oppressed, and it’s interesting to see a character using the system for their own ends. There are very tiny, little ways, like enjoying the sunshine, snuggling up next to a book, enjoying a pat on the shoulder or a glance, that are extraordinarily gentle. And there are other much bigger avenues, be it writing a book, having a career, winning awards, I found it fascinating to explore all of that. “

Opposite Jane, we find an equally interesting male protagonist who allows himself to feel and be intimate in a gentle way, unlike his peers of the time. Paul is played by Josh O’Connor, who is one of the actors who best represents this deconstructed masculinity in film and television, and who knows it:

“I feel like if I look at all the men I’ve played, they’re men struggling with their masculinity or struggling with their emotions and trying to overcome them. It’s a recurring theme in my career, to be honest, but I don’t. I think it’s conscious. I just I think it’s a current phenomenon, and I think fortunately it’s also happening in cinema.”

If these themes are so highlighted, it is also thanks to the strong writing of Alice Birch, who writes the script between the lines. The screenwriter notably worked on Lady Macbeth, Dead Ringers, but also on the successful TV series Normal People and Succession.

Trailer for Between the Lines, currently in theaters:

Comments collected by Megan Choquet on July 10, 2021 in Cannes.