‘The Children Act’ Film Review: Emma Thompson Grapples with Conscience in Sluggish Legal Drama
If Emma Thompson can’t make “The Children Act,” a drama about a family-court judge conflicted over her own decisions and the precarious state of her own family, into something interesting and meaningful, then no one can. And she can’t.
Screenwriter Ian McEwan, adapting his own novel, and director Richard Eyre (“Notes on a Scandal”) have assembled a fine cast to tackle controversial subjects brimming over with dramatic possibility, but the results are stultifyingly subdued. It’s all so polite, so sober, so convinced of its own importance, that it never has a pulse. This is love and life and death discussed as though they were paint swatches for the guest room.
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