ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

JULIAN FELLOWES’ career must serve as an encouragement to all of life’s late bloomers. The 56 year old is probably best known as Kilwillie in ‘Monarch Of The Glen’, but over the last five years he has blossomed into the Oscar-winning screenwriter of ‘Gosford Park’.

He has also adapted the smash hit West End version of ‘Mary Poppins’. Now, he stretches his talents further as the writer and director of ‘Separate Lies’, an economical, tightly controlled portrait of a relationship in crisis.

Based on a little known novel by British writer Nigel Balchin, ‘Separate Lies’ begins with a tragedy. A man is cycling along a country lane when he is hit by a Range Rover and hurled into a ditch. The driver does not stop to discover the fate of his victim.

Solicitor James Manning (Tom Wilkinson) believes that the guilty party is his friend Bill Bule (Rupert Everett). It subsequently transpires that the person driving the vehicle at the time of the accident was Manning’s wife Anne (Emily Watson), and the revelations of an affair rip apart their fragile marriage.

‘Separate Lies’ is a very English tale of emotional repression, hurt and betrayal in which the smallest actions or observations can have the widest impact. Respecting social niceties and following tried and trusted routines are all part of a desperate attempt to maintain a sense of normality in lives that are turned upside down.

It is a world that Fellowes seems to know well, and his modest, accomplished directorial debut is enhanced by a fine cast, led by an outstanding Tom Wilkinson as a man who comes to learn that compassion and compromise are not signs of weakness.

General release, selected cinemas
Director: Julian Fellowes
Stars: Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson, Rupert Everett, Linda Bassett, Hermione Norris.
Screenplay: Julian Fellows, based on the novel A Way Through The Wood by Nigel Balchin
Certificate: 15
Running time: 85 mins
Country: UK/USA
Year: 2005

© Allan Hunter, 2005