‘A Clever Woman’ — engagingly low-key English drama defies expectations

Author: The Guardian

British indie director Jon Sanders creates another of his low-key, thoughtful movies developed through improvisation; it is a static, eccentric chamber piece in some ways, but engaging and pregnant with ideas about mourning and grief. Josie Lawrence and Tanya Myers play Dot and Phoebe, two sisters who have come to the seaside home of their late mother, a singer and entertainer, to confront the daunting task of sorting out all her belongings and theatrical memorabilia. This opens up painful memories and psychic wounds: however much they loved her, their mother was serially unfaithful to their father – once with a boyfriend of Phoebe’s – and now they don’t know how to feel. These themes of sexual transgression are strangely echoed in the present action, as if the women’s mother is haunting the property. Their friend Monica who has come to help them, is attracted to Tom, a young man who has been housesitting the property; she feels guilty about her husband, an excellent cameo from the late Bob Goody.

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