Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Jeremy Irons | ... | Tom Crick | |
Sinéad Cusack | ... | Mary Crick | |
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Grant Warnock | ... | Young Tom |
Lena Headey | ... | Young Mary | |
Callum Dixon | ... | Freddie Parr | |
Sean Maguire | ... | Peter (as Sean McGuire) | |
Ross McCall | ... | Terry | |
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Camilla Hebditch | ... | Shirley |
David Morrissey | ... | Dick Crick | |
John Heard | ... | Lewis Scott | |
Maggie Gyllenhaal | ... | Maggie Ruth | |
Ethan Hawke | ... | Matthew Price | |
Cara Buono | ... | Judy Dobson | |
Pete Postlethwaite | ... | Henry Crick (as Peter Postlethwaite) | |
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Stewart Richman | ... | Ernest Atkinson |
Tom Crick, a high school history teacher, is having trouble connecting - with his class, with his wife. He ventures into telling his class stories about his young adulthood in the Fens district in England. The emotional wounds from his younger life wash over him in present day, affecting his work and his relationships with his students and his wife. Written by Martin Lewison <milst1@yahoo.com>
As a huge fan of Graham Swift's novels, I was pleasantly surprised to see how well this complex and detailed work was compressed into film form. While I think Jeremy Irons, David Morrissey and Sinead Cusack are all outstanding in this film, I really feel that the transplanting of the frame from England to America diminishes the story. Surely Price's nihilism is not merely a standard adolescent world-weariness, but a form of the punk sensibility contemporary with the book's appearance. Still, the film does a good job of capturing the sense of place in its English scenes, and handles the poignancy of the story effectively. The film is good, but the book is immense.