The Winter Guest **** (1997, Phyllida Law, Emma Thompson, Sheila Reid) – Classic Movie Review 2396

Alan Rickman’s highly impressive and moving debut as director stars real-life mother and daughter Phyllida Law and Emma Thompson as a screen mother and daughter. It won three awards at the Venice Film Festival. including Best Actress for Thompson. It is based on Sharman MacDonald’s play, premiered at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1995 before transferring to the Almeida Theatre in London that year.

The film follows the interactions between four pairs of people in Scotland on one wintry day. They are a mother and daughter, Elspeth (Phyllida Law) and Frances (Emma Thompson); two young boys, Sam (Douglas Murphy) and Tom (Sean Biggerstaff), who skip school to play on the beach and talk; two old women who like to attend strangers’ funerals, Chloe (Voe) and Lily (Sheila Reid); and two teenagers Nita (Arlene Cockburn) and Alex (Gary Hollywood who is approaching his first sexual experience

In the main story, Frances is a recent widow who is determined to leave Scotland for Australia with her teenage son Alex to escape her memories, but an unexpected visit from her aging mother Elspeth makes her reconsider her decision.

The acting is superb, and Seamus McGarvey’s cinematography, Michael Kamen’s score and the production designs are outstanding pieces of work. Adapted by Rickman, the piece, though totally dialogue led, really works on screen as a film. Rickman has a cameo as a man in street.

The play was also directed by Rickman, starring Law, Voe and Reid, but Siân Thomas played Frances, taken over by Thompson. Its set of a house interior, promenade and snowbound seascape won the design award at the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards in 1995.

It took 17 years for Rickman to follow this up with his second film as director, A Little Chaos in 2014.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2396

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Phyllida Law was flanked by her daughters Sophie and Emma Thompson when she received her OBE at Buckingham Palace in 2014.