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R18

EMPIRE OF LIGHT

Genre
Drama and Romance
Running time
119 minutes
Year
2022
Language
English
Country
United Kingdom and United States of America (USA)
Director
Sam Mendes
Bio
Producer
Pippa Haris
Cast
Michael Ward, Olivia Colman, Colin Firth, Toby Jones
Scriptwriter
Sam Mendes
Olivia Colman is extraordinary as Hilary, the smiling, efficient, middle-aged manager of a beautiful, slightly fading cinema in a British seaside town in the early ‘80s, who suffers periodic outbursts of schizophrenia. When her abusive boss (Colin Firth) takes on a young West Indian usher called Stephen (Micheal Ward) – a rare Black face in this very White bit of England - he is instinctively drawn to Hilary as someone else who doesn’t quite fit in. The two begin a tentative relationship, safely cocooned by the cinema’s tightly-knit staff of amiable eccentrics, until the racist National Front invades their sleepy town, whipping up the local skinheads to march along the sea in front of the cinema. Meanwhile, Hilary’s brain has started fizzing with illness again. Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes has created a moving story of a particular time in Britain, drawing on elements of his own past.

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