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Puffball (2007)

Director: Nicolas Roeg

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Synopsis

It’s been more than a decade since Nicolas Roeg’s last theatrical feature release, so his new project has aroused considerable interest. It’s based on Fay Weldon’s 1980 novel about Liffey, a rich, naive young housewife who moves to a country cottage and arouses the supernatural ire of her witchy neighbour by getting pregnant. It’s been updated by Weldon’s son Dan – Liffey is now an architect – and features Miranda Richardson, Rita Tushingham and Roeg’s ‘Don’t Look Now’ star Donald Sutherland.

Movie review

From Time Out London

Nic Roeg’s long-awaited return to the big screen takes the form of an atmospheric if modestly scaled adaptation of a Fay Weldon novel about the threatening ‘pagan’ mire that envelops a young female English architect (Kelly Reilly) who’s come to an Irish hamlet to redevelop a cottage with a past. Roeg conjures reasonably lightly with Weldon’s teasing feminist-inflected, ‘Wicker-Man’-lite allusions, blending a naturalistic, psychologically heightened shooting style with sexual frankness and gynaecological inserts as the newcomer’s sexual dalliance with a neighbour’s husband sets up a witches’ brew of jealousies, rivalries and miscarriage-inducing potions. The performances are uneven: Reilly is fresh and spontaneous, but Rita Tushingham’s ancient crone, peering ominously through windows, seems a little stock and Donald Sutherland – as Reilly’s guru-like boss who visits offering maxims on renewal – is too ethereal. The steadfast stare of a sheep dog is genuinely creepy.

Author: Wally Hammond 2008-07-15 12:41:47

Time Out London Issue 1977, July 10 -16, 2008

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Puffball

Cast & crew

Director: Nicolas Roeg

Cast: Keeley Hawes, Miranda Richardson, Donald Sutherland, Kelly Reilly

Genre(s): Horror

Duration: 120 mins

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