Ordinary Love

Joan and Tom have been married a long time. Every evening they walk the same route, talk about the same things and tease each other. One day Joan notices a hardness in her breast. They go to the doctor. The diagnosis comes and treatment begins: surgery, chemotherapy, hospital corridors and waiting rooms. The film follows the process from beginning to end. What the narrative is interested in is not the illness but how the two behave toward each other through it. There is a loss in their past and it is never spoken of directly. Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn direct. Lesley Manville plays Joan and Liam Neeson plays Tom. It is a Northern Irish production. The screenplay is by Owen McCafferty, who wrote it out of the period of his wife's illness. The narrative does not exaggerate the hospital scenes; the procedures are shown but the film does not use them as dramatic peaks. Its best side is the work of the two actors together; most of the talk is about everyday and unimportant things. The Belfast locations are used plainly and the narrative nowhere enters a political frame. It keeps the supporting characters few; apart from a couple met at the hospital there is almost no surrounding world. Its limit is scale; the narrative is deliberately small and builds no large plot. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet relationship drama and films centred on acting. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, little happens, and the pace is slow.