Night Watch (The)
- Director: Richard Laxton
- Writer: Paula Milne; Sarah Waters
- Producer: Margaret Conway; Ann Tricklebank
CGiii Comment
From the director of An Englishman in New York...and, from the pen of Sarah Waters.
Three distinct time periods told in reverse...
A strange mechanism since we already know how all the characters end up...that's the problem.
The characters aren't exactly interesting...they haven't been developed enough.
There is a trace of a good story with the gay boy - a good twist...but - woefully - under-developed.
A major disappointment.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
In post-war London Viv Pearce, seeing married spiv Reggie, runs a dating bureau with Helen Giniver, who lives with her older lover, authoress Julia Standing. Viv's younger brother Duncan, a tormented homosexual, has been in prison and is sought out by his - straight - ex-cellmate Robert Fraser, who served time as a conscientious objector and is now concerned for the boy's welfare. Viv encounters Kay Langrish, a wealthy, reclusive butch lesbian and for both women this evokes memories of 1944 when Kay was an heroic ambulance driver and Helen was Kay's girlfriend, before Kay introduced her to her ex-lover Julia. Viv had an illegal abortion, funded by Reggie, and, after she needed hospital treatment, Kay saved her from prosecution by claiming she was a married woman who had miscarried.
Cast & Characters
Harry Treadaway as Duncan Pearce;
Anna Wilson-Jones as Julia Standing;
Liam Garrigan as Reggie Nigri;
Claudie Blakley as Nancy;
Kenneth Cranham as Horace Mundy;
Colin Mace as Harry Hughes;
Claire Foy as Helen;
Jodie Whittaker as Viv;
Anna Maxwell Martin as Kay;
Richard Cambridge as Policeman