The Escapist is very much an English story but, like Mackinnon’s earlier film, Trojan Eddie, it was filmed in Ireland. “It should have been shot in England, because it’s an English story,” he says. “But we’re in Ireland because they are wise enough to have tax concessions. British Government wake up!”
For the film, Mackinnon has assembled a top cast and crew, including (in addition to Miller and Serkis) Jodhi May, who won Best Actress at Cannes for A World Apart. In The Escapist, she plays Christine, Denis’ sister-in-law, who ends up looking after the baby her sister was carrying when she was murdered.
“She tries to make a life for herself because, in her mind, Denis is dead,” explains Mackinnon. “He died in a plane crash, committing suicide. But he’s not dead and, when he escapes from prison, he’s drawn back to the house where it all occurred in the first place. He believes the house has been sold, but Christine is actually living there: she has split up from her husband and is living in the house with the child.
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Jonny Lee Miller with Gary Lewis plays Denis, whose whole life is consumed with revenge after his wife is murdered.
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“So, in the middle of the movie, Denis is confronted once again with life. These two characters are kind of twins in grief. One of them expresses it in a responsible way by looking after the child and making a life, and the other one completely buries everything human and becomes obsessed with taking revenge on the man who took the life of his wife. I think there are emotional levels in the story that might be kind of surprising.”
Crucial to the whole enterprise was the casting of Denis, who has to remain interesting and even sympathetic while cutting himself off obsessively from the world. “I worked with Jonny on Regeneration,” says Mackinnon, “and he’s an actor I’ve got a strong feeling about. We worked really well together and we wanted to make another film.” For his part, Miller describes Mackinnon as something of a paradox: “Very easy-going and, at the same time, passionate.”
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“It feels to me a mythological story, where Denis tracks down this man who has ruined his life. He can’t put his own life at peace and he can’t put it back together again until he has done that”
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Equally important, says Mackinnon, was the casting of Ricky Barnes. “It was quite difficult,” he says, “because we had to find somebody who would really give a quality to the role and wouldn’t be a stereotypical bad guy. I met Andy and I just had this strong instinct about him as being somebody who could transform what would otherwise be a rather obvious character. And I’m delighted in the way that he has been able to walk into his shoes and give Jonny that mirror image, that dark mirror image, of the man that he has to destroy.”
The Escapist is produced by Jolyon Symonds (whose last credit was the totally different Kevin & Perry Go Large) for Sky Pictures, the feature-film arm of the UK satellite broadcaster, which has been responsible for such offbeat movies as Saving Grace - a major hit in the US and Germany - and Don Boyd’s My Kingdom.
For Mackinnon, The Escapist is ultimately a thriller with a strong emotional edge. “I think in a way it is a love story between a man and his wife who has been murdered and the love story continues,” he concludes. “He can’t betray her, and he has got to find the man who killed her and kill that man. In that sense, it has a biblical feeling to me. And that, I hope, takes it above the more mundane revenge thriller.”
