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In 2008<\/span>, you couldn\u2019t move for the column inches proclaiming American filmmaker Lance Hammer to the Next Big Thing on the back of his soulful, neorealist debut feature, Ballast<\/i>. Then, almost to bite a\u00a0thumb at media hacks singing his hosannas, he fell quiet for 18<\/span>\u00a0years before returning with the hushed, London-set drama Queen at Sea, <\/i>while also casually fulfilling the prophecy from nearly two decades prior. This is a\u00a0film that feels like its every frame, every nuance, every tension-filled line of dialogue has been pored over in the search for precision, and while it may look and feel like a\u00a0fairly conventional tale of frayed lives and dysfunction, it\u2019s anything but.<\/p>\n The film opens with Juliette Binoche\u2019s Amanda letting herself into a\u00a0healthily sized terraced house, tiptoeing around believing it to be empty, then walking in on her elderly mother Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall) and stepfather Martin (Tom Courtenay) frantically copulating. She becomes wild with fury, as her mother is suffering from dementia and, she feels, has no way to consent to this. Her gut reaction is to call the police and have them investigate what she feels could constitute rape, though Martin claims it\u2019s Leslie who demands this experience of tactile tenderness. The police come around and no one is quite sure of the protocol, yet Martin\u2019s suitability as prime caregiver is questioned and this cosy, later-life situation begins to crumble.<\/p>\n While Hammer\u2019s film displays superficial similarities to Michael Haneke\u2019s Amour<\/i>, itself about an ageing couple experiencing life\u2019s inexorable fade-out, it\u2019s much more interested in the paradoxes of love as well as celebrating the fact that the arcane desires of the human soul don\u2019t quite chime with the science of medical textbooks and tenets of legal frameworks. Phenomenal, unguarded work from the three leads, who are all clearly wise to Hammer\u2019s intentions, undoubtedly helps this one to fly, but this is also a\u00a0work of intricate plotting, careful information delivery and subtly expressive editing. Evocative, rarely filmed London locations are used selectively, with the metropolis bathed in a\u00a0sheen of mournful blue-green. The interiors of various domicles are made to look like glum prisons.<\/p>\n Yet in a\u00a0beautiful, valuable additional touch, Hammer juxtaposes the end-game relationship between Leslie and Martin with the burgeoning puppy love experienced by Amanda\u2019s teenage daughter, Sara (Florence Hunt). It brings an element of well-earned levity to what could have been a\u00a0depressive blanket statement on the death of love, placing the film\u2019s cruel machinations within a\u00a0cosmic context of perpetual human reproduction. That said, Queen at Sea <\/i>is a\u00a0harrowing, vital film that offers an authentic vision of a\u00a0future that many of us will likely experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White\u00a0Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n