This flat fragmented television film about a public relations tycoon Gideon Warner (Bill Nighy) was a disappointment from Stephen Poliakoff.
I found it notable for early roles for Emily Blunt who plays the semi estranged daughter Natasha who wants to leave her womanising father and Tom Hardy who plays Gideon's young, enthusiastic, right hand man.
The film is narrated by a writer Sneath played by Robert Lindsay who is dictating a book. The film spans the new dawn of a Labour landslide in the 1997 general election, to the death of Princess Diana and the Millennium celebrations. It was a time of spin doctors and celebrity culture.
The film just did not work. Gideon is a weary man who just lets his clients babble on. He seems to be interested in a couple who lost their son in a cycling accident. The mother Stella (Miranda Richardson) seperated from her husband and something about her attitude and how she deals with her grief intrigues him.
The film never deals as to why Natasha wants to head to the jungle once she leaves college. What is causing the resentment with her father.
Smeath himself was a superfluous character, there was no reason for him to be here. This should had been a quirky film that would delve into the zeitgeist of one of the great governments of the 20th century that came into power just as the century was about to end.
