|
|
return to sender
Aidan Quinn (with Kelly Preston) plays Frank, who becomes fascinated by the case of Charlotte Cory.
Gradually, though, we begin to realise that there is some secret in Frank’s past, too. “He’s somewhat of a crushed idealist, and he probably drinks too much,” says Quinn, who worked with producer Lunderskov on Song for a Raggy Boy in Ireland last year. “He’s like the walking wounded: he’s anaesthetised, a little bit numb. He’s tried to distance himself from feeling too much because of past experiences and obviously his own psychological reality. But he is slowly brought back to life by his relationship with Charlotte.”
There are echoes of Monster’s Ball in the fact that Charlotte opens up to Frank without any idea of the motive that led him to get in touch with her in the first place. But this gradually becomes less important, as he begins to delve into the mystery surrounding the kidnapping, and in particular into the life of Charlotte’s little sister, Paris, who had been blinded in a car crash which left Charlotte wracked with guilt. Exactly how all the pieces slot together, though, is the kind of edge-of-the-seat process you would expect from Purvis and Wade, the writing team behind such major movies as The World Is Not Enough, Die Another Day and Johnny English.
“I think that’s what’s exciting about the twists and turns of this film,” says Quinn, “is that they are psychologically grounded in a lot of research and a lot of reality. I think the writers did a fantastic job.”
And that job is nowhere more impressive than in the gradually growing relationship between the two damaged people at the centre of the story: Charlotte and Frank. The latter only agrees to visit Charlotte in jail - something which he has assiduously avoided doing in his other ‘last letter’ scams - in the belief that there may be something more in it for him. But the relationship that slowly develops between them through the metal-and-glass barrier in the visiting room takes on a perverse and disturbing element which surprises them as much as it does us.
“He is slowly brought back to life by his relationship with this woman,” says Quinn. “She is like quicksilver in his veins - not only in a human way, on the soul level, but also in a physical man-to-woman, sexual, erotic, fascinating way.”
What makes it all the stranger is that Frank is, on a rational level, initially disgusted by Charlotte. “He is pretty convinced that she is this horrendous baby-killer through a good portion of the film,” notes Quinn, “and then he starts to do research. He starts to uncover things and to realise, ‘Wait a minute, maybe this is not all it seems’.”
“The material we’re basing ourselves on is by lawyers who’ve written about their experiences or people who are working with prisoners,” adds Nielsen. “Those are the experiences that we have been reading about, and obviously they feel that there is a whole lot we could do to change the situation.
“Sometimes it’s hard to make art out of politics, but sometimes art can touch upon a political subject without making it a polemic or political film itself, and I hope that’s what we’ve been doing.”
|
RETURN TO SENDER
Intandem Films presents
a Moviefan Scandinavia
production, in association with Number 9 Films
|
|
Prod: Michael Lunderskov, Stephen Woolley; Exec prod: Gary Smith, Andrew Brown, Paul White, Michael H Laursen, Peter H Laursen; Dir: Bille August; Scr/Co-prod: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade; Ph: Dirk Brüel; Prod des: Viggo Bentzon; Cost des: Françoise Nicolet; Ed: John Scott; Casting: Ricki Maslar, Tine Sætter-Lassen; Mus: David Arnold
With Aidan Quinn (Frank Nitzsche, aka Frank Walsh), Connie Nielsen (Charlotte Cory), Kelly Preston (Susan Kennan), Tim Daly (Martin North), Mark Ryan (Mark Schlesser), Mark Holton (Joe Charbonic), Bill Thomas (Gubby), Randy Colton (Joe Hammond), Sarah-Marie Maltha (Stella)
International distribution: Intandem Films
|
|
|
|
