Tag: maxine peake

cinema

Film review: I Swear

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 Tourette’s syndrome activist John Davidson is no stranger to our screens, having been the subject of groundbreaking Q.E.D. television episode titled ‘John’s Not Mad’ among many other documentaries over the years.  His campaign to raise awareness of the disorder led to an MBE award in 2019 and his incredible story has been dramatised in the latest feature from writer and director Kirk Jones. Based in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels, biographical comedy drama I Swear follows John through a challenging adolescence (Scott Ellis Watson) and into adulthood (Robert Aramayo) as he comes to terms with his diagnosis. After mental health nurse Dottie (Maxine Peake) takes him under her wing, he meets Tommy (Peter Mullan) who presents him with a rare opportunity and encourages him to speak out about the condition.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: Fanny Lye Deliver’d

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fannylye

British filmmaker Thomas Clay made an impression on the scene back in the noughties with two controversial films that had began to establish him as a rising star to pay attention to. After strangely going off the radar ever since, he’s returned to the director’s chair with period drama Fanny Lye Deliver’d. Set on an isolated Shropshire farm shortly after the English Civil War, the plot centres around the bleak lives of Fanny (Maxine Peake), her abusive husband John (Charles Dance) and their son Arthur. When young couple Thomas (Freddie Fox) and Rebecca (Tanya Reynolds) arrive unannounced to seek shelter in their barn one night, the Lye’s strict puritan lifestyle is challenge by radical new ideas.

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DVD & Digital

DVD review: The Falling

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thefalling

Writer and director Carol Morley presents a coming-of-age story about teenagers in an all-girls school but one that avoids the expected scenarios of the modern teen movie genre. Setting her tale in the late 1960s, it relies on old-fashioned storytelling methods that are suitably accompanied by beautifully bewitching imagery. The plot centres around Lydia Lamb, a mixed-up girl from a broken home played by Game of Thrones’ starlet Maisie Williams. Always in the shadow of her uber-confident best friend Abbie (Florence Pugh), she yearns to discover herself and where her place is within the disciplined, cliquey society she finds herself in. At home, she is teased by her peculiar older brother Kenneth (Joe Cole) and neglected by her agoraphobic mother Eileen (Maxine Peake), which result in a bout of odd behaviour which strangely begins to spread throughout her classmates.

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