Hallam Foe **** (2007, Jamie Bell, Sophia Myles, Claire Forlani, Ciarán Hinds, Maurice Roëves) – Classic Movie Review 3055

Co-writer/director David Mackenzie’s 2007 movie stars Jamie Bell as weird 17-year-old Hallam Foe, who can’t stop missing his mother after her overdose of sleeping pills and suicide drowning in a lake near their house in Edinburgh. Bell is the perfect presence for this rich and strange mystery romantic drama, based on a novel by Peter Jinks.

Hallam’s hobby is as a peeping tom, spying on the locals. He has talent for spying on people that reveals his darkest fears-and desires. He is driven to expose the true cause of his mother’s death, and blames his stepmother Verity (Claire Forlani) for killing his mother.

After a row with his father Julius (Ciarán Hinds), Hallam sneaks out from his house and travels to Edinburgh, where he finds himself searching the rooftops for love and becomes obsessed with Kate Breck (Sophia Myles) who resembles his mother. But Kate hires Hallam to work in the kitchen of the hotel where she works and they start a strange romance.

Mackenzie brews up a compelling air of intrigue and mystery, as well as personal pain, and concocts it into a satisfying, haunting movie, with a lovely performance by Bell, and ideal ones from Myles, Forlani and Hinds. And there’s a good atmosphere of that fair city Edinburgh too.

Ed Whitmore collaborates on the screenplay.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3055

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