To Olivia

source: To Olivia

source: To Olivia

After a very promising start with an entertaining scene of peaches establishing the 1960s in England I felt this short film was directed rather as a stone skimming across a lake - making contact here and there with strong vignettes but never delivering anything powerful or moving. Later it seemed to be take a spiteful swipe at the character of the late Paul Newman in a scene that added little. Had the film concentrated soley on the bout of measles that claimed Olivia, the effect of grief on parents who dealt with it so differently and the impact on the rest of the children I think it could have been more rounded. But it seemed to try too much in too short a time. A small distraction was the complete lack of regard for young son Theo - it is mentioned he survived a car accident but neither parent engages with him and he spends most of the time abandoned in a cot. Anything which takes the focus from the scene is, for me, a mistake.

One of the first , if not the first book I ever read was Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. A brilliant book that I still hold dear to my heart . Ronald Dahl had a fantastic talent that not many authors had but there is so much about the man that I never knew . Until now In 1962, Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl retreat to the English countryside to bring up their young family. The seemingly unlikely pair find their relationship put to the test by a tragic loss. Firstly I had no idea that he was married to Patricia Neal . The sultry older woman to Paul Newman's Hud . A brilliant film that I only watched for the first time this year . Secondly i didn't know about the tragedy in his life and how it affected him and his family so badly. Although this does delve into the writing of Charlie and the Chocolate factory and the Patricia's Oscar winning performance in Hud , this is more about family and their grief . It's about dealing with bereavement of a daughter and and how they got through the worst thing that can happen to a family . Hugh Bonneville is great as Dahl as is Keeley Hawes as Patricia Neal. The prosthetics on Bonneville take a little getting used to but you can see why they did it because the last thing you want is Roald Dahl to be a Robert Crawley from Downtown Abbey. I really liked this and I can't quite get my head around the low ratings it has got . Perhaps I was more invested in the story that most people ?

I wasn't one of the kids that read that many children books, so naturally I didn't know if the main character or his story were real. As an outsider from this universe, i couldn't help but glue my eyes and deem them captive to a magnificent performance, swiftly and gently sailing down the stream of a heartwarming story, that had me more and more interested in Mr. Dahl, and, mind my adult age of twenty-two, read the books he birthed.

Ronald Dahl apparently couldn't adequately deal with his still living children (or his wife for that matter) after his favorite child died. Keely Hawes was quite good with a thin plot.

Absolutely brilliant and a true treasure to the memory of the Dahl family.. Brilliant acting and an absolute must for any Roald Dahl fan.

It's an emotional story but jumps from scene to scene in parts which I found annoying. The young actress who played Tessa was excellent. Hugh Bonneville was fine as Dahl. Keeley Hawes, my absolutely favourite British actress, is a quintessential English rose and the American accent didn't suit her and wasn't very good. It's often the little things they get wrong that ruin an otherwise good film for me. The 2-year old boy appeared randomly, silent and unmoving and was barely mentioned.. When Roald threw a clod of earth at the window to attract Pat's attention, that clod moved about several times in the scenes that followed, sometimes disappearing altogether then returning in a different place. Don't they have continuity editors any more? Other than that, it was pleasant to watch with a decent storyline but I got a sense of a film that they'd rushed to get finished.

I didn't qrite connect with the story because there is a lot of negativity between the couple, and there's a lot of gibberish as well.

Hugh Bonneville is excellent as Dahl, even looks like him, and Keeley does a workmanlike job as Patricia Neal but there's little to enjoy about the film really. It's largely factual so a good way to learn more about Dahl's life. I've given it 7 as I can't really fault the acting but it's a pretty gloomy piece all in all.