- Film Review
- Reviewed By David Parkinson
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3 out of 5
This engaging saga accompanies well-heeled Patrick Melrose (Jack Davenport) to Provence for a holiday with his wife and their two sons in the villa that his Alzheimer-afflicted mother Eleanor (Margaret Tyzack) has gifted to a New Age charlatan. However, when she requests his help to arrange her assisted suicide, Patrick is forced to rouse himself from his resentful, booze-fuelled stupor. Adapted by Edward St Aubyn from the Booker-nominated fourth instalment of his acclaimed Melrose Cycle, the movie is light on Patrick's crucial (and harrowing) backstory, so always feels like the continuation of an ongoing story rather than a stand-alone drama. And in accommodating subplots involving his mother-in-law (Diana Quick) and an ex-girlfriend (Flora Montgomery), it often feels like an episode from a TV serial. But the performances are fine and director Gerald Fox ably captures the local ambience and the distorted perspectives generated by Patrick's debilitating self-pity.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Patrick Melrose
- Jack Davenport
- Mary Melrose
- Annabel Mullion
- Seamus O'Dorke
- Adrian Dunbar
- Eleanor Melrose
- Margaret Tyzack
- Kettle
- Diana Quick
- Margaret
- Annette Badland
- Robert Melrose
- Thomas Underhill
- Jim Packer
- Robert Portal
- Caroline Hull
- Jane How
- French nurse
- Isalinde Giovangigli
- Nanny Jo
- Laura Power
Crew
- Director
- Gerald Fox (2)
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