A CLEVER WOMAN dir. JON SANDERS
James Northcote and Anna Mottram in A Clever Woman
This is a lovely lyrical film. It came about by convivial happenstance . The Director Jon Sanders was on the Isle of Wight on a jaunt with his wife Anna. They decided to call up an old friend who had moved there . We just rang on the off chance and he cried ’ You’re only yards from our door’. Which is when we saw the set, the house, place where we made the film” Our friend disappeared obligingly for a couple of weeks” . In that house, a location which found itself, they shot the film they.had conceived over months. The house just became the set in eery detail from its rambling rooms to its attics stuffed with random objects of nostalgia.
And the cast? They as ever were friends. Jon Sanders’s beautiful actress wife was a given, she has starred in most of his work. But serendipitously Josie Lawrence overheard the word ‘improvisation’ one evening at a party and told Jon Sanderson ‘ I do that’. ‘ So I’ve heard he responded to someone who is probably Britain’s leading improv expert. ‘ And how about you to play her sister?’ He asked Tania Myers. ‘ I am her sister’ she responded. It was a cast made in the heaven of conviviality. James Northcote was different. He sought them out . “ “I heard there were these people who made films in an entirely different and authentic way, he explains ‘ and I watched every film they had made and said to myself,‘ That’s what I want to do , I want to be part of that” So I sort of stalked them and got the role. The cast was ready.
Poster for A Clever Woman starring Josie Lawrence and Tania Myers
The story was yet to come . Two sisters re-vist their childhood home, where their mother has recently died. Tenderly they lounge about on her old bed and talk about the past. The improvised dialogue is touchingly real. They sing snatches of her favourite songs. Yet the closeness is undercut by sisterly rivalry, a spiky undercroft for a beautifully rendered scene of family grief. Helping out at the clear up of the old home is Monica a family friend. She and friendly helper Tom form a real life dramatic counterpoint to the contemplation of the past. Their attraction is wonderfully convincing and the Kiss when it comes deeply erotic and entirely right for the story. Sex and death often pair up in times of grief - in this instance the age gap makes their illicit link up ( Monica has a wonderfully played husband re-imagined in flashback to where he waits at home for her) .
A Clever Woman has already been described as Bergmanesque, but the comedy of the two sisters their credible naturalness and relaxed honesty - both sisters are brilliant at this - brings an enjoyable recognisable lightness to an all too familiar conflict of joy and sadness.
In Cambridge Soon. A must see.
