HOLLOW REED
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This film tells the story of a
divorce custody battle for a boy who is being
brutalized by somebody, but who refuses to say by
whom. Complicating matters is the fact that the
father is gay and after the separation has taken a
male lover. HOLLOW REED was modestly produced for
Britain's Channel 4, but is better than most studio
productions from this country. Rating: low +2 (-4
to +4)
Some very fine films get made for British television and only few of them ever get seen in the United States. HOLLOW REED tells the moving story of a custody battle between two divorced parents. It also subtly comments on the advantages that a woman has in the British legal system. As the film opens Martyn and Hannah Wyatt (played by Martin Donovan and Joely Richardson) have been married, had a child, and been divorced and each now lives with a lover--both male. Martyn, a doctor, has nominally accepted fault for a marriage he suspected from the beginning could not work because he simply could not make himself sufficiently interested in a woman. Though he practices medicine, he lives in a rather tatty apartment with his lover Tom Dixon (Ian Hart). In the divorce Hannah received the rather upscale house and at least temporary custody of young Oliver, their son. To reaffirm her attraction to men she lives with Frank Donally (Jason Flemyng), a macho construction worker, the antithesis of Martyn. As the film opens Oliver has been badly beaten and comes to his father's apartment. Oliver remains mysterious about the boys he claimed did the beating, but since nobody can find any more about the incident it is allowed to pass. When Oliver shows up at school with a crushed hand and this time obviously lies about how he got the injury Martyn begins to suspect that his son has fallen victim to being systematically brutalized by Frank. Hannah denies that as a possibility and Martyn realizes his only chance to protect his son lies in trying to win Oliver in a custody battle. But that makes for a doubly up-hill battle being gay and a man in a country that systematically shows preference to the mother in custody battles.
The audience eventually knows who attacks Oliver though it takes the characters a good deal longer to piece it all together. Meanwhile Oliver remains a cipher. He ingenuously devises complex ways to escape from his house and to spy on his parents, apparently planning some counter-attack of his own. But in the presence of adults he remains withdrawn and nearly silent, only coming out of his shell to show enthusiasm for STAR WARS toys and radio broadcasts. Just why he behaves as he does forms the central mystery of HOLLOW REED. He clearly misses having both his parents present, but Hannah fills herself with hostility for her former husband and now even jumps at his touch. At the same time she reaches out for the stable relationship she thought she had and later lost in her marriage to Martyn. The screenplay is by Paula Milne based on a story by Neville Bolt, itself based on a true story.
Angela Pope directs the film in a generally low-key style. That seems for the best since her one flamboyant touch is to send the camera orbiting around the major characters in the climactic scene of the film, a touch which may have some symbolic meaning but it gets lost on the viewer as much as the unexplained title of the film. Top billing goes to Martin Donovan of THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY as the concerned father. He and Ian Hart have a steamy gay love scene that brought gasps from the audience. Joely Richardson has less passion in her role in spite of character's professed disappointment with Martyn as a husband. She went on to be the second female lead in 101 DALMATIANS. Most familiar to American audiences will be Edward Hardwicke as a chief magistrate but who may be best known as Watson to Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes.
The land of Shakespeare and Marlowe still has its share of good writers still prizes writing as part of a basic education and much of what they give away free on television is better than what we pay for here. I give HOLLOW REED a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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