A new movie from acclaimed British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom is always a highly anticipated event for avid cinephiles, and even when like ‘TRISHNA’ his last one, they are far from perfect they are still streets ahead of so many other independent movies. And an added joy is the fact that one is never sure what genre he will tackle next as each movie is always an enormous leap from the last. This however, may be where my love affair now ends, or at least cools down rapidly, and I never ever thought the day would come when I could sum up a Winterbottom movie with this one word : tedious!
What may have seemed like a brilliant idea on paper when it was conceived over five years ago, turned out in reality to be quite badly thought-out, and rather dumb one. Essentially this is the story of Ian a working class petty criminal who is imprisoned for drug offences and the movie tracks how it affects his wife Karen struggling with bringing up their four small children on her own over the next 5 years. It was filmed like a documentary, literally a few weeks at a time over the whole five years, (and there was I puzzling how the children looked like they were getting bigger …. cos they literally were).
Despite using two of his excellent regular actors playing Ian and Karen the understated John Simms and the diminutive tough cookie Shirley Henderson (in her 6th Winterbottom role) it was still just like watching paint dry as the whole 87 minutes consisted of Karen dragging her children in buses and trains back and forth on long journeys to visit their father at the latest prison he had been moved too in some other remote part of Britain. I sat there right to the bitter end hoping that something of consequence may eventually happen, but nothing did. I’m not sure if Mr Winterbottom had assumed that we would be so impressed with this slightly daring way of filming a feature movie, that we wouldn’t notice that there was no plot at all to keep us remotely interested in this poor wretched family and how their lives would turn out once Ian was eventually free again.
The only redeeming feature is the ever reliable Ms Henderson but I dont think even she, or Mr Winterbottom’s name on the marquee, or Michael Nyman’s wonderful score is enough to justify enyone having to sit through this. The plan is to show it on Channel 4 TV in the UK, and then a theatrical release in other countries after that, but dont hold your breath as I think it wont be around for very long.
What may have seemed like a brilliant idea on paper when it was conceived over five years ago, turned out in reality to be quite badly thought-out, and rather dumb one. Essentially this is the story of Ian a working class petty criminal who is imprisoned for drug offences and the movie tracks how it affects his wife Karen struggling with bringing up their four small children on her own over the next 5 years. It was filmed like a documentary, literally a few weeks at a time over the whole five years, (and there was I puzzling how the children looked like they were getting bigger …. cos they literally were). 
