[FILM]
EMPIRE OF LIGHT
The magic of the movies: Stephen (Micheal Ward) and Hilary (Olivia Colman).
★★★ OUT 9 JANUARY / CERT TBC 113 MINS
DIRECTOR Sam Mendes
CAST Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Monica Dolan, Tom Brooke, Tanya Moodie, Hannah Onslow, Crystal Clarke, Toby Jones, Colin Firth
PLOT In a British seaside town during the early 1980s, Hilary (Colman) works at the fading Empire cinema. When new employee Stephen (Ward) joins the team, the pair forge a romance — but her mental-health issues, and the turbulence of the times, threaten to drive a wedge between them.
SAM MENDES’ LAST film, the one-shot war epic 1917, was a tribute to his grandfather, a World War I veteran. Empire Of Light, his latest, is an understated, 1980s-set drama set in a creaking old seaside picturehouse — ahandbrake turn in every way. But there is a personal element to this storytelling, too: Mendes has spoken about this being a tribute to his mother, who suffered from mental illness. The result is a period melodrama which tries earnestly to be many things at once, not all successfully: a mismatched romance, a portrait of a nervous breakdown, a snapshot of Thatcher’s racially charged Britain, and a love letter, of sorts, to cinema.