Incendiary (film)
Incendiary | |
---|---|
Directed by | Sharon Maguire |
Written by | Sharon Maguire (screenplay) |
Based on | Incendiary by Chris Cleave |
Produced by | Andy Paterson Anand Tucker Adrienne Maguire |
Starring | Michelle Williams Ewan McGregor Matthew Macfadyen |
Cinematography | Ben Davis |
Edited by | Valerio Bonelli |
Music by | Shigeru Umebayashi |
Distributed by | Optimum Releasing |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Incendiary is a 2008 British drama film portraying the aftermath of a
Plot
A young East Ender woman (Michelle Williams) is married to bomb-disposal officer Lenny (Nicholas Gleaves); they have a four-year-old son (Sidney Johnston).
While the young mother is having an affair with a reporter called Jasper (
Through Jasper's investigation into the bombing, the mother discovers the identity of one of the terrorists. She befriends his teenage son (Usman Khokhar), who only knows that his father is missing since the attacks. When he finds out what his father did, he panics and runs, causing the police to suspect him to be a terrorist. When he tries to take something out of his pocket they think he has a gun or wants to trigger a bomb; they shoot at him, but he is unarmed. The mother, who tried to protect him, is wounded, but not severely. Later, the terrorist's wife and son apologize to the mother for his part in the killings.
Terrence confesses to the mother that he knew that a suicide attack was going to happen and could have stopped it, but he did not in order to be able to continue his investigation of the terrorist group. He says that he did not know in which stadium it would happen, and also thought it would be of a smaller scale. Although he knew Lenny and his son would be going, he did not warn them.
Sometimes the mother is confused, thinking that nothing has happened to her son. Throughout the film, for therapeutic reasons, she writes a letter addressed to Osama bin Laden, who is assumed to be responsible for the attack.
In the film's final scenes, the mother has another son by Jasper, who is seen running to the hospital and asking for her at the nursing station.
Cast
- Michelle Williams – Young Mother
- Ewan McGregor – Jasper Black
- Matthew Macfadyen – Terrence Butcher
- Nicholas Gleaves – Lenny
- Sidney Johnston – The Boy
- Usman Khokhar – The Bomber's Son
- Sasha Behar – Mrs. Ghorbani, the Bomber's Wife
- Ed Hughes – Danny Walsh (as Edward Hughes)
- Alibe Parsons – Pearl
- Stewart Wright – Charlie
- Al Hunter Ashton – Male Survivor
- Benjamin Wilkin – Young Policeman
- Steve Leatherbarrow - Policeman
- Robin Berry – Dazed Supporter
- Mercy Ojelade – Nurse Mena
- Joe Marshall – Gary / VT Man
- Dom Garcia - Young Lad on Train Platform
Production
Mainly the book and the film are about this mother’s love for her child and the loss of that child. There is also a policeman, who is essentially a good man who wants to do the right thing but can’t because he’s got an unseen enemy and he has to make decisions that he wouldn’t normally make and it gets him into trouble. Then there’s a journalist who kind of represents the liberal thinkers in society. All liberal thinkers have had to reassess that attitude since
9/11 because the results of free association, free movement, and free expression have put us all in danger in many ways, so everybody’s had to rethink their position. They represent the world before 9/11 and 7/7and then what happened afterwards, so that’s what it’s about.
—Sharon Maguire[1]
Filming began on 26 March 2007 in
The production also visited The Metropolitan Training College facilities near Gravesend to shoot the scenes at the football stadium, after the bomb has exploded.[2]
Reception
The film received generally negative reviews from critics. Tom Charity, after viewing the film at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, gave it one star out of five and called it an "ambitious/opportunistic effort that misses the mark, from the one-dimensional characters to the craven plotting and sentimental tone."[3]
Philip French called it an "ambitious British picture on an urgent topical subject [that] is torpedoed by a poor script."[4]
References
- ^ All fired up, an interview with director Sharon Maguire from eyeforfilm.co.uk
- ^ a b c Kent Film Office. "Kent Film Office Incendiary Film Focus".
- ^ Review of Incendiary, a January 2008 article from The Times of London
- ^ Review of Incendiary, an October 2008 article from The Observer
- Time OutLondon
External links
- Incendiary at IMDb
- Incendiary at Rotten Tomatoes