Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Dean Spanley (2008)

Director: Toa Fraser

4
Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Small film, big delight. New Zealand playwright-turned-director Toa Fraser has made a fine fist of adapting the curious, titular 1930s book by idiosyncratic Anglo-Irish writer Lord Dunsany. Jeremy Northam, in a characteristically unostentatious performance, is our sympathetic guide through this tantalising trip into the strange world(s) of Edwardian England. He plays the long-suffering son of ageing curmudgeon Peter O’Toole, to whom he introduces Sam Neill’s eccentric Dean,  thus triggering a series of evening conversations which conjure up all manner of mind-boggling revelations elicited from liberal libations of a rare Hungarian Tokay wine… The director’s comfort in his surroundings –whether it be comportment, dress or interior design – match his gently mischievous delight in the vagaries of the custom-locked but free-ranging mind of the time. This nicely acted drama, in quietly intimating the quirky familial relations and peculiar fascinations of the era – not least with the transmigration of souls, mysticism and the supernatural – delivers a highly pleasurable if modest experience and a sweet tribute to the old traditions of the shaggy dog story.

Author: Wally Hammond 2008-12-09 10:08:46

Time Out London Issue 1999, Dec 11 - 17, 2008

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Dean Spanley

Cast & crew

Director: Toa Fraser

Cast: Peter O'Toole, Jeremy Northam, Sam Neill, Bryan Brown full cast

Genre(s): Drama

Duration: 100 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.