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Having scored an Oscar for writing Gosford Park, quintessential Englishman Julian Fellowes stepped behind the camera for the quintessentially English drama Separate Lies. Acting stalwarts Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson play a married couple in quiet meltdown for what is a "solidly made but strangely lightweight" film. Too many stiff upper-lips also kept moviegoers at a distance although the low-key approach will probably play better on the small screen.
Lies And Prayers
An audio commentary by Fellowes is all that accompanies the film on DVD. As you'd imagine though, it's a very articulate account of the truth that lies beneath the surface of the image and between acerbic lines of dialogue. It's clear that Fellowes still considers himself a writer more than a director, because he focuses mostly on this and steers clear of any technical trivia. Regarding the day-to-day business of shooting, he does admit that the constant threat of bad weather had him reduced to "a little, trembling first-time director". But praying to your dead mother is the only advice he offers to budding filmmakers...
Degrees Of Separation
From the outset, Fellowes admits that only two scenes remain intact from Nigel Bachin's original novel, choosing to preserve instead its "central moral quandary" (sparked by a hit-and-run accident). Later on, he points out the junctures at which he wants the viewers' loyalties to shift and, speaking as an actor too, highlights all the subtleties of Wilkinson's performance. He also had very particular ideas about the depiction of upper-class society. "What I wanted was a sense of modern England," he explains, "the kind of pretend Edwardian England that only the rich are able to create to keep the nastier bits of the modern world at bay."
Besides the lack of nuts-and-bolts info and nil contribution from Wilkinson and Watson, Fellowes talks surprisingly little about the challenges of adaptation. Certainly he enhances the film with his intimate knowledge of the characters and their inner workings, but like them, this DVD leaves a lot unsaid.
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