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Review of ‘Spring in Beechwood’, the new Olivia Colman

For lovers of cup movies that also know how to turn up the heat.

Direction: Eve Husson Distribution: Odessa Young, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Olivia Colman, Glenda Jackson, Sope Dirisu, Alfredo Tavares Original title: mothering sunday Country: United Kingdom Year: 2021 Release date: 02-18-2022 Gender: Drama Script: Alice Birch. Novel: Graham Swift Photography: Jamie Ramsay Synopsis: March 30, 1924, Beechwood (England). The Niven couple (Olivia Colman & Colin Firth), belonging to the English aristocracy and who have lost their children in the war, are preparing to celebrate Mother’s Day and the engagement of Paul (Josh O’Connor), the son of their neighbors, with Emma Hobday (Caroline Harker). The Nivens have given the day off to their maid, Jane Fairchild (Odessa Young), orphaned at birth and, for seven years, Paul’s lover. With the house empty, Paul and Jane meet for the first time in Paul’s bedroom. The young couple will unleash their clandestine passion knowing that the adventure is coming to an end and that it will be their last day as lovers…

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The best: the lyricism of its most intimate scenes and its absorbing atmosphere.

The worst: that he does not know how to extract all the juice that he offers to Swift’s novel.

The French Eva Husson finds in ‘Mother Sunday’ by Graham Swift a perfect vehicle to continue exploring sex and intimacy –fundamental in her first film, ‘Bang Gang: A Modern Love Story’ (2015)– and at the same time instead expand the margins of a British period fiction that often errs on the side of modesty. The director frees herself from the corsets looking for a non-linear narration through three eras, the emotional and physical proximity with her protagonist (excellent Odessa Young) and the naturalness of the nude, moving away from what fans of ‘Downton Abbey’ would expect to find. . The result is an adaptation that transfers Swift’s words to images of a poetic vocation and of a lyrical at times moving, in search of an emotional depth that, however, tends to remain only on the surface. Although the beginnings of great reflections can be seen –the post-war trauma, the creative process, the pain of individual and collective loss–, none of them fully blossoms.

The best movies of 2022

Source: Fotogramas

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