Oscar winning James Marsh (Project Nim, Man on Wire), better known for his documentaries, switches back to fiction drama for this take on the Troubles in Northern Ireland in an engrossing psychological thriller which benefits from an excellent cast.
Andrea Riseborough stars as Collette – as a child she experiences first-hand the violence of the conflict, which informs her decision as an adult to undertake a terrorist act on the London Underground. This doesn’t go as planned and arrested by MI5, she is given an ultimatum by the authorities in the form of Clive Owen – either co-operate as an informer or stand to risk losing her son. This conflict between the personal and the political, between betrayal and loyalty is the emotional heart of the film and portrayed in all its ambiguity and complexity.
The focus here is not just on plot although it offers supreme moments of tension, more it is on the moral dilemmas faced by both sides and in the character of Collette, the choices of a woman struggling to survive and to build a different kind of life than the one that seems determined by her birth and circumstances.
This is a film which takes a familiar subject but eschews easy answers, drawing us in to a drama which feels authentic at both an emotional and dramatic level.