British drama film The Children Act is based on a novel by Ian McEwan, who adapted his book into its screenplay. The tenth film based on one of McEwan’s stories, the title refers to a piece of UK legislation introduced in 1989 that was designed to ensure that children under eighteen are protected by the law, even if that is contrary to parents’ wishes. The film, directed by Richard Eyre, was inspired by a number of a real life cases that were tried by Alan Ward, a prominent former judge. Most courtroom dramas centre on the criminal courts, but, as Ian McEwan explained, the family courts are where the real drama is.
Ian McEwan (English accent): I was at Alan Ward’s house for dinner one night and there were a few other judges sitting around the table, and what surprised and amused me was the extent to which they knew each other’s judgments. And they teased each other and they quoted each other... sometimes there are conflicting interests that collide and a decision has to be made and I thought ‘What a treasure this is’!
EMOTIONAL DRAMA
McEwan reimagined Ward as a female character, Fiona Maye, played by Oscar-winning actor Emma Thompson. Maye is a prominent judge in the High Court of Justice. Her job is to judge difficult cases, often involving children. Each presents an impossible moral dilemma, and to remain objective, a certain emotional distance is, for Maye, crucial. Yet when things start to fall apart in her marriage, she begins to make unusual professional decisions. With one case, involving a seventeen-year-old Jehovah Witness who is suffering from leukaemia and refusing treatment, she takes the unorthodox step of visiting him in hospital. As Thompson explained, Judge Maye is surprised by what she finds.
Emma Thompson (English accent): She expects a child who has been sheltered and perhaps not very well educated. I think she has assumptions that are blown away by this flame of life that she encounters. She’s someone who sits in court above everyone. [It’s] very difficult not to feel omnipotent in such a situation and suddenly when he faces her she has none of that and she doesn’t know what to do. It’s one of those strange borders where your personal life is very unbalanced and then suddenly within the professional life you’re also faced with an extremely challenging personal relationship.
BEHIND THE SCENES
The film crew went to to go great lengths to recreate an authentic law court and re-enact its proceedings. Sir Alan Ward acted as legal consultant on the movie and Thompson had unprecedented access behind the scenes at London’s Old Bailey, the name commonly given to the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales after the street on which it stands. The actor described the experience as a privilege.
Emma Thompson: Backstage at the [Old] Bailey and in those places, only judges and their clerks are allowed to walk on the red carpet. It’s extraordinary, the arcane hierarchies within that system are amazing. They are these godlike creatures in their robes walking around with this extraordinary power and hardly any women have that kind of power. So, you’re playing something very unusual.
MACHINES OF THE LAW
The UK has one of the lowest numbers of female judges in Europe, and Thompson was impressed by the superhuman way that both female and male judges ran their personal and professional lives.
Emma Thompson: I watched them in action and I talked to them afterwards. They listen with their whole bodies, it’s determined listening. So you can understand why ‘silks’ could get a bit nervous. It’s their task to listen and then calibrate and recalibrate the information that’s coming in. To combine that sense of power with compassion, with bringing up four children, for instance, getting up at four in the morning and doing all the work so that she could see the children off to school: they are superhuman.
Emma Thompson: Unstoppable
Emma Thompson is one of the UK’s most accomplished and best-loved actors, and the only person to receive Academy Awards for both acting and writing. Born in London in 1959 into an acting family, Thompson attended Cambridge University, where she performed with its acting troupe, Footlights. On graduating, she met with immediate acclaim for her role in the BBC TV series Fortunes of War. Her first film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy, opposite American actor Jeff Goldblum, and she appeared that same year in Kenneth Branagh’s screen adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play Henry V (1989).
In the 1990s, Thompson was a regular on the red carpet: in 1993, she won an Academy Award for her role as Margaret Schlegel in Howards End, a film adaptation of the E. M. Forster novel. The following year she was back in Hollywood with nominations for her role as a housekeeper in The Remains of the Day, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, and as a lawyer in the biographical drama In the Name of the Father. In 1995, she was back again, collecting a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for the film Sense and Sensibility, based on the Jane Austen novel, in which she also starred.
In the 2000s, Thompson focused on supporting roles: she featured in the acclaimed Angels in America (2003), an HBO miniseries about the 1980s AIDS epidemic, and appeared as the eccentric teacher Sybill Trelawney in two of the Harry Potter films. She was further acclaimed for Last Chance Harvey (2008), a romantic drama film also starring Dustin Hoffman. Her headlining role as the author P.L. Travers in Saving Mr. Banks, starring Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, was called “impeccable” by critics, and Disney fans will recognise her as Mrs. Potts in the blockbuster Beauty and the Beast, with Emma Watson in the lead.
Thompson’s sense of humour saw her pick up a part as Agent O in Men in Black 3 and its recent sequel Men in Black: International. And last year she was back again, playing a topical role as the politician Vivienne Rook in the startling BBC/HBO miniseries Years and Years.
In real life, Thompson is sharp, extremely smart and down to earth. In a recent interview, she called dieting her “big regret in life” and the #MeToo movement “a wonderful moment of clarity”! She is a vocal champion of human rights and environmental causes, and a role model for younger actors, who cite her courage, candour and extraordinary talent as inspirations.