Anyone with a passing knowledge of the life of Roald Dahl might still not be fully aware of the tragic circumstances that led to his writing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, that essential work of children’s literature that spawned two major motion pictures. With To Olivia, screenwriters John Hay (who also directed) and David Logan remind us of those biographical details in a film that is observant in its specificity and, finally, affecting in its universality. Within the specific story of Dahl suffering and grieving the death of his elder daughter, there is the more broadly effective tale of a husband and wife trying to figure out their place with each other following the worst kind of tragedy.
A large part of that is due to the performances. Hugh Bonneville plays the film’s version of Roald, who is deadly sincere here as both the promising author of many children’s books trying to come up with a new idea. Keeley Hawes is Roald’s wife, the actress Patricia Neal, who will wind up losing a child and winning an Academy Award within a year’s time. Both of these actors are quite good at communicating each character’s personality, finding what makes them tic separately and together, and doing the hard work of elevating scenes of the couple’s earth-shaking arguments beyond the typical arguments we see in this kind of domestic drama.
Roald and Patricia may have rubbed along in a fashion that suggested they were always on the verge of the big, marriage-ending argument (indeed, divorce eventually came, though not for many years after the events of this movie). The two also, though, had five children over the course of their marriage, and we meet three of them here: Olivia (Darcey Ewart), her younger sister Tessa (Isabella Jonsson), and their younger brother Theo (played by brothers Alfie and Tommy James Hardy). As the title suggests, Olivia grows ill – encephalitis as a result of measles in a time just before a vaccination was developed for the condition – and eventually dies, leaving a hole in the lives of her parents.
Much of the film is devoted to following Roald through his unfathomable grief, which unintentionally leads to a rift between him and Tessa, the latter having felt ignored all through the process of illness and even more so now that the firstborn child of the family is gone. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though it’s hard to see for the man, already prone to loneliness and somber reflection. This is a hardened man of age and experience, only occasionally playful (a prank opens his story, as he and Patricia devise a Meet Cute in front of a mutual acquaintance who is unaware of their relationship).
Much of this development is familiar within the realm of domestic dramas about unthinkable loss, but Hay and Logan (adapting Stephen Michael Shearer’s novel, a work of historical fiction) are successful at digging a little deeper than we might anticipate from these basic trappings by refocusing on a character who could, under less empathetic circumstances, have gone under the radar. Patricia attempts to bounce back from the loss of her child by taking on her Oscar-winning role in Hud, a stretch that not only gives us a cameo from Sam Heughan as a larger-than-life, ultimately dedicated Paul Newman. Turning the focus onto the character who had sort of disappeared into the background is a sign that To Olivia was made by the smarter hands.
Photo courtesy of: Vertical Entertainment
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