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There's a lot to recommend this film. Principally there is the very fine (another very fine) performance from Jude Law. His versatile and grown-up performance glues the ensemble and the story strands together. The support is top notch: Juliette Binoche is the pick of the rest, thrown into chaos by her thieving son and Law's flaky contemporary liberal; around her are a convincing neurotic (Penn), compassionate urban realists (Farmiga and Winstone) and Martin Freeman playing an almost cameo-like doppelgänger to Law. And I don't know where they found Rafi Gavron who is brilliant as a first timer amongst such company.<br /><br />The film has a couple of issues - it's almost pathologically organised with one-too-many similar themes investigated and resolved over its arc. The ending ties everything up too neatly.<br /><br />Despite this the film manages to break the bonds of domestic or TV drama that so easily dog other British productions. London is definitely a character though. There are carefully chosen landmarks just off the tourist radar; even the estate where the immigrant family live is not a council dive but a flawed marvel of late 1960s architecture (The Rowley Way Estate in Camden).<br /><br />A super film that, from its performances to its look, dispenses with preconception to examine the way modern individuals deal with one another in isolation. 8/10 |