A Quiet Passion (12A) ****
Dir: Terence Davies
With: Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle
Runtime: 125 minutes
TERENCE Davies’ biopic of Emily Dickinson is a loving affair and all the more engaging for that. Cynthia Nixon, of Sex and the City modern misses fame, plays the 19th-century poet as a mixture of strength and vulnerability, daring and reserve. Even before illness took its toll, we see how †her horizons were limited by her sex, the times, and her own fierce self-criticism. The director of Of Time and the City manages to work visual miracles with a small budget and his screenplay has a wealth of witty, well-turned lines to which all concerned do justice. A treat.
GFT and DCA Dundee, April 14-20; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, April 24-27
The Sense of an Ending (15) ****
Dir: Ritesh Batra
With: Charlotte Rampling, Jim Broadbent
Runtime: 108 minutes
IN Ritesh Batra’s quietly engaging drama, adapted from the novel by Julian Barnes, Jim Broadbent plays a retired, divorced, Guardian-reading, curmudgeonly Londoner who is about to become a grandfather. Tony knows who he is and how he got here. At least he does until news of a bequest brings back memories of his long-ago youth and the person he was then. Directed by the helmer of the equally moreish The Lunchbox, Batra has a first-class cast, which also includes Harriet Walter and Charlotte Rampling, and the confidence to allow Barnes’ story to breathe, all of which makes for a small-scale but beautifully formed piece.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here