Alice’s opinion, my dear

It may be her debut, but director Mary Nighy knows how to build tension. Alice’s sight of Anna Kendrick twisting her hair so tightly around her finger that it cuts off her circulation makes it clear in the opening moments of this film that something is wrong with her life. But what that something is and how it affects it only gradually emerges. The result is far more powerful than many flashier efforts on the same subject.

From the outside, Alice’s life looks good. She lives in a luxurious apartment in the city center, she dresses well and has a boyfriend, a rising star, Simon (Charlie Carrick). But when she goes out for drinks with her friends Sophie (Wunmi Mosaku) and Tess (Kaniehtiio Horn), she lets her guard down a bit and we get the first hints that all is not well in their relationship. When she frantically tries to destroy a note that was slipped into her pocket by a handsome waiter, it’s clear that Alice and Simon aren’t the dream couple they’re trying to pretend to be. Over the course of a week with the girls, the cracks begin to widen between the real Alice and the life she leads under Simon’s dominating shadow.

The insidious truth of Alice’s situation only gradually becomes clear to her and is also dispensed to the viewer as the camera follows her in intimate close-up as she tries to keep Simon happy. It’s a simmering drama, almost a thriller, anchored by a flawless performance from Kendrick and punctuated by a quietly monstrous turn from Carrick, as the man who thinks he’s fine. . But in the end, it’s the warmth of Mosaku and Horn that stays etched in her mind, like the women who wake Alice up and defend her from the ever-present specter of male violence.