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Dean Spanley

  • Film
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • Recommended
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Time Out says

4 out of 5 stars
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.
Written by Wally Hammond

Release Details

  • Rated:15
  • Release date:Friday 12 December 2008
  • Duration:100 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Toa Fraser
  • Screenwriter:Alan Sharp
  • Cast:
    • Peter O'Toole
    • Jeremy Northam
    • Sam Neill
    • Bryan Brown
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