The screenplay is adapted by Ian McEwan from his novel of the same name, and, as in the book, the conclusion at which Fiona arrives, in the judgment that she reads out to the court, is revealed surprisingly early. Should the state honor religious scruples or intervene to save a life, even against the wishes of the afflicted? Adam agrees with them and is ready to perish for his beliefs, but, being three months short of his eighteenth birthday, he is also technically a child, and it is thus the responsibility of the court-and of Fiona in particular-to determine what is best. However, his parents, Kevin (Ben Chaplin) and Naomi (Eileen Walsh), forbid the procedure to go ahead they are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and blood, for them, is lifeblood, a gift from God that should not be shared.
A boy named Adam Henry (Fionn Whitehead) is dreadfully sick with leukemia, days away from death, and requires a blood transfusion.
One evening, Nigel calls Fiona after hours, with a pressing matter. “Have you ever been wild and free, Nigel?” Fiona asks. Still, Fiona does have a clerk at her disposal, Nigel Pauling (Jason Watkins), who is obliged to address her as “My Lady.” Punctilious and fussy, he has many duties to discharge, from running through the roster of imminent cases to putting her judge’s wig in its oval metal box, like a mother laying her baby in a crib. We are used to watching judges, on TV and in the movies, enter the courtroom through a side door and assume their lofty perch, as if in majesty, with everyone standing to attention so it’s fascinating to be ushered behind that door, even if what we discover there is a wholly unmajestic environment, complete with coffee machines. A short stroll away is her place of work, the High Court, where the best scenes in the film are set. (So is Goneril’s, in a way, but for her the law is a tool of terror.) She lives with her husband, Jack (Stanley Tucci), in a cozy London apartment. It’s weird to see Thompson venturing into the badlands of cruelty, but you start to realize how her intellectual precision could, in a pinch, be turned to evil ends-how Goneril might find an acid joy in explaining to her father why he needs to be brought so low.Īt the other end of the spectrum is Fiona Maye, the judge played by Thompson in “The Children Act.” Fiona’s field of expertise is family law. In a new production of “ King Lear,” available on Amazon Prime from September 28th, she plays Goneril, opposite Anthony Hopkins in the title role. The larger of the two is showing on the smaller screen, and vice versa. This month, she appears in two very different dramas, both directed by Richard Eyre.
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