A young mother contemplates her lot in life with more than a little dissatisfaction. Although she loves her child, cold trips to the seaside and a distant husband leaves her wanting more. Close to her tower block lives Jasper a young, successful journalist who seems to offer the excitement she lacks. On one fateful afternoon, while she is making love to Jasper, her son and husband are killed, whilst attending a football match, the victims of a terrorist bomb...

Incendiary (2008 - 1 hr, 35 min, 57 sec) was adapted and directed by Sharon Maguire (Bridget Jones's Diary) from a novel by Chris Cleave.

The film follows the mother through the loss of her husband, who worked, ironically, in bomb disposal, and child. Through Jasper (Ewan McGregor) she discovers the identity of not only the bomber, but also the location of his wife and son, a son she befriends, all the while writing unsent letters to Osama Bin Laden.

The film is an oddity as it can’t make up its mind what journey it wants to take its audience on. There is the affair with Jasper, which goes nowhere, Ewan McGregor's character appears only to exist to push some of the plot forward, elements that could have been included in Michelle Williams’s role as the nameless mother. Following the bombing she has a brief affair with her husband’s boss, Terrance (Matthew Macfadyen) and befriends the bomber's son (Usman Khokhar), before having a complete breakdown. The crossover of genres makes for very disjointed viewing combining a police cover-up, a number of love affairs and a strangely undefined relationship between the woman and the bomber's son.

The cast do what they can with this flawed script and Michelle Williams nearly pulls off keeping your attention as the unnamed mother, but the overall impression of the film is one of a flat and confused script, with the bane of all films, a voiceover.

The disc does a little better for extras, with interviews from Sharon Maguire (20 min, 57 sec), Anand Tucker, Producer (6 min, 42 sec), Andy Paterson, Producer (15 min, 39 sec), Chris Cleave, Author (22 min, 34 sec), Michelle Williams (6 min, 49 sec), Ewan McGregor (9 min, 16 sec) and Matthew Macfadyen (6 min, 16 sec), in which everyone says positive things about the film and its subject matter.

There are some good performances and credit has to go to Williams for her convincing portrayal of a London working class mother. Some of her scenes when she is falling apart are particularly harrowing, but against this are some odd tasteless moments like the blimps which are flown across London with the faces of the thousand plus dead plastered on their side, like cheap advertising.

The film is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio with a choice of either a stereo or 5.1 audio track with subtitles.

Whilst it is good to see an English independent film which isn’t another romantic comedy, more focus on the script would have gone a long way to making this a better film.

6

Charles Packer