Starring: Hugh Bonneville, Keeley Hawes, Geoffrey Palmer and Sam Heughan
Distributor: Icon Films
Runtime: 94 mins. Reviewed in May 2022
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
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This British film tells the story of the relationship between Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal as they come to grips with the death of their 7-year-old daughter Olivia.
This British drama is based on the biography of Patricia Neal – Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life, written by Stephen Michael Shearer and published in 2011. Neal was an internationally famous actress, who married famous author, Roald Dahl in 1953. The film portrays their acute grief over the death of their 7-year-old daughter, Olivia, who died in 1962 from encephalitis, as a result of measles. It was a time when measles killed.
Neal was an extraordinarily gifted actress, who gained multiple awards on stage and screen for her dramatic portrayals. Dahl wrote joyful books for children with flights of fancy that magnificently captured child-like impishness, and his books have lasting appeal for children and adults. The films to Dahl’s name are exceptional. His stories are taken up by The Witches (1990, 2020), The BFG (2016), Fantastic Mr Fox (2009), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971, 2005). Dahl died before all (except one) of these films were made.
In this film, Bonneville (Dahl) and Hawes (Neal)convincingly and impressively take on the main roles.
Neal and Dahl’s marriage was tumultuous. Grief so overcame Dahl he couldn’t bear to hear, or even pronounce, his dead daughter’s name. Neal, herself, tried to comfort Dahl, but couldn’t reach him; he was too distressed. Their inability to connect and give comfort to each other eventually pushed Neal away from Dahl into a lonely existence, where she successfully pursued her acting career. When Neal returned to acting, she was a leading actress in Hud, opposite Paul Newman, who is played in this movie by Sam Heughan. There are revealing emotional moments throughout the film, when both Neal and Dahl needed help. One such moment occurred when they went for spiritual support to the Archbishop of Canterbury (played in the film by Palmer), and both were angry at the insensitive treatment they believe the Archbishop gave them.
The film lends itself to thought-provoking discussion. Neal and Dahl were two incredibly gifted people, whose creativity was prodigious, but grief prevented them from expressing their creativity in union with each other. It is impossible to guess what would have happened had Olivia lived, and had their marriage lasted (which it didn’t). The film raises intriguing questions about their lives: Neal was alive at the time The Witches (1990) was directed by Nicolas Roeg, and one wonders how she would have played the part that Anjelica Huston acted so well in his dark, fantasy film.
This a moving film about impossible grief that involves two incredibly talented people, who had a difficult marriage. The script factually anchors their marriage in turbulence. Dahl could be jealous, rough, cruel, and dismissive, but he was a person, who communicated amazing sensitivity to children, and for a long time he was devoted to his family. Although Neal and Dahl lived a poignant, emotional life together, the film fails to reveal how the tragedy of Olivia affected the two of them in their relationships to others.
It impressively takes viewers through the stages of grief that was shared, but leaves the reader ignorant of how grief was reflected in their work, which undoubtedly it must have been. The film concludes with happy, contented scenes of Neal and Dahl back together again after Neal won an Oscar for Best Actress in Hud, and Dahl found fame with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This was before Neal discovered Dahl had a long-term relationship with a woman he later married, and her marriage to Dahl ended in bitter divorce.
This is a film that raises more issues than it solves, but it engenders excitement and genuine interest about the lives of two talented people, who contributed so much creatively.
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