"Actor: Auriol Lee"

• Hilary And Jackie (Wide Screen) | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £6.88   |  Saving you £6.10 (156.81%)   |  RRP £9.99

  It earned Oscar nods, yet this cinematic look at a genius--that of English cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who enraptured audiences with her bold, emblazoned and wholly unconventional playing style, and who died at age 42--was criticised for its "lapses" in truth by people who purportedly knew du Pré. Some of the controversy revolved around the other main character in Anand Tuckers gorgeous, involving movie--du Prés sister, Hilary, whose book,A Genius in the Family (cowritten with brother Piers), dished some dirt on Jackies sleeping with Hilarys husband. But dont let that deter you from this ebullient movie experience. Hilary and Jackie is a bisected story (each sisters tale is told in the same amount of screen time) teeming with heartfelt drama that belies the cheap shots it received from its detractors. Its stirring, reckless, loving, involving, and rife with unconventional passion; passion for music, life, art, and the delicate relationship between these two synchronous, extraordinary sisters as played by brilliant actors Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths (both of whom earned Oscar nods). Though Watson got the juicy, showy role as Jackie, its Griffiths who provides the heart, soul, and spine of the film. And director Tucker has that gift of being able to explain through the visual medium what is happening inside of his characters heads. Hes helped by a fine screenplay by Frank Boyce Cottrell. No matter what the truth of Hilary and Jackie might really be, this is an exceptional, rare film that is defined and graced by fine acting and writing. --Paula Nechak

• Suspicion | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Repeated viewings can't dispel the shock of the final scene of Suspicion, Hitchcock's classic 1941 romantic mystery--a brief but disorientating confrontation that suddenly inverts the heroine's mounting conviction that she's married a murderer, forcing us to reconsider virtually every scene and line of dialogue that's preceded it. It's a masterful coup de grâce for the director, who has built a puzzle around the corrosive power of suspicion, threaded with deft ambiguities that toy with dramatic conventions and character archetypes in nearly every frame. As embodied by Joan Fontaine, who nabbed an Oscar in this second outing with the director, Lina McLaidlaw is a buttoned-up, bookish heiress whose prim exterior conceals longings for a more engaged emotional life. Her solution materialises in the darkly handsome Johnnie Aysgarth, a gambler, womaniser and spendthrift who flirts, then pursues, and soon marries her. As Aysgarth, Cary Grant is both irresistible and sinister, capable of deceit and petty theft, as well as grander designs on his bride's impending fortune. Lina's passion for Johnnie is clouded by each new revelation about his apparent dishonesty, from clandestine gambling to real-estate development schemes; more troubling are clues implicating him in the death of his best friend, and the prospect that Johnnie may be slowly poisoning Lina herself. By the time we see him ascending a darkened staircase with a suspicious glass of milk, an image made all the more indelible through the spectral glow the director captures in the glass, the evidence seems damning indeed. In fact, even as Hitchcock stacks the deck against Johnnie, and takes full advantage of Grant's skill at conveying such menace, the director also dots his landscape with visual clues to Lina's own neurotic (and erotic) obsessions. The final scene forces us to re-evaluate her behaviour while leaving enough of a cloud over Johnnie to rob him, and us, of a complete exoneration. It's a wicked, unsettling payoff to a brilliantly executed thriller. --Sam Sutherland

• Hilary And Jackie | DVD | (10/09/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  It earned Oscar nods, yet this cinematic look at a genius--that of English cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who enraptured audiences with her bold, emblazoned and wholly unconventional playing style, and who died at age 42--was criticised for its "lapses" in truth by people who purportedly knew du Pré. Some of the controversy revolved around the other main character in Anand Tucker's gorgeous, involving movie--du Pré's sister, Hilary, whose book,A Genius in the Family (cowritten with brother Piers), dished some dirt on Jackie's sleeping with Hilary's husband. But don't let that deter you from this ebullient movie experience. Hilary and Jackie is a bisected story (each sister's tale is told in the same amount of screen time) teeming with heartfelt drama that belies the cheap shots it received from its detractors. It's stirring, reckless, loving, involving, and rife with unconventional passion; passion for music, life, art, and the delicate relationship between these two synchronous, extraordinary sisters as played by brilliant actors Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths (both of whom earned Oscar nods). Though Watson got the juicy, showy role as Jackie, it's Griffiths who provides the heart, soul, and spine of the film. And director Tucker has that gift of being able to explain through the visual medium what is happening inside of his character's heads. He's helped by a fine screenplay by Frank Boyce Cottrell. No matter what the truth of Hilary and Jackie might really be, this is an exceptional, rare film that is defined and graced by fine acting and writing. --Paula Nechak