Romola is the first actress featured here who I discovered while watching a film for someone else ( see below ) . She is of Hungarian Jewish extraction and was born in Hong Kong in 1982 . She began acting in 2000.
1. Nicholas Nickleby ( 2002 )
2. I Capture The Castle ( 2003 )
3. Dirty Dancing : Havana Nights ( 2003 )
4. Vanity Fair ( 2004 )
5. Inside I'm Dancing ( 2005 )
6, Scoop ( 2006 )
7. As You Like It ( 2006 )
8. Amazing Grace (2006)
9. Angel ( 2007 )
Romola got a juicy lead role in this period drama about an Edwardian romantic novelist.
Angel was adapted from a novel by Elizabth Taylor although writer-director Francois Ozon made some major changes to the storyline and considerably compressed the timeline. The lead character Angel Deverell ( Romola ) was loosely based on the melodramatic Victorian writer Marie Corelli who achieved great success for a time but failed to leave a lasting impression on literature.
We first meet Angel as an old-looking teenager, a self-obsessed writer in denial of her humble origins and treating her mother ( Jacqueline Tong ) with brutal contempt. By some miracle, she finds a publisher in gentlemanly Theo Gilbright ( Sam Neill ) whose wife Hermione ( Charlotte Rampling ) is appalled by her lack of social graces. Angel becomes a great success and attracts the devotion of repressed lesbian aristocrat Nora ( Lucy Russell ) but she is more interested in Nora's artist brother Esme ( Michael Fassbinder ). Nora knows her brother is a shallow, self-serving shit but cannot penetrate the dream world Angel chooses to inhabit. How this love triangle plays out in Angel's gawdy manor house ,Paradise, takes up the rest of the film.
Both writer and star face a formidable challenge to make one care what happens to a character established as repellent and obnoxious from the beginning. and who regards the First World War as a personal inconvenience. It's not made easier by a campy tone to the first half of the film including some blue screen work that's so clumsily done that it must be a deliberate choice. Once the menage a trois is established and the story becomes darker, it becomes possible to feel some pity for a deluded fantasist pinning her hopes on a worthless man who's only ever going to disappoint. Unfortunately the sad conclusion is spoilt by a ridiculously melodramatic final scene where Angel makes a declaration that's completely out of character.
Romola is consistently terrific throughout and there isn't a bad performance in the film but you're never fully engaged with the story.
10. Atonement ( 2007 )
Romola has an important but relatively small role in this adaptation of Ian McEwen's bestselling novel, She's one of the three actresses playing the central character of Briony Tallis whose fervid adolescent imagination leads to a miscarriage of justice that tears her family apart. I had previously read the novel which I found clunky and contrived though intermittently interesting so I was curious as to whether the film-makers could iron out some of the wrinkles.
The drama starts in the mid-thirties in a country house where 13- year old youngest chld and aspiring writer Briony ( Saoirse Ronan ) is trying and faling to interest her cousins in performing her latest work, a turgid playlet at a forthcoming family dinner. On top of that frustration, she discovers that her older sister Cecilia (Kiera Knightley) has begun a sexual relationship with Robbie the housekeeper's son (James McEvoy) who the family are supporting through college. This blows her mind and when she half-witnesses the opportunistic rape of her cousin Lola (Juno Temple) during an emergency, she puts the finger on Robbie.
The action then moves on to World War Two where Robbie has been sent to France after being conditionally released from prison and is making his way to Dunkirk. Cecilia, now a qualified nurse in London and estranged from her family, awaits his return. Briony (now played by Romola) has just started her nurse's training when a news item triggers a flash of realisation that she got it wrong and she decides she must see Cecilia to set the record straight. The epilogue with Vanessa Redgrave as the aged and dying Briony tells us that not everything we've witnessed actually happened.
The film was a commercial success and garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Picture ( Ronan was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress). Though well-made and largely well acted, I can't muster wild enthusiasm for it largely because it is so faithful to the book. The first act is just as mechanically plotted and wildly improbable in the film as in print and Cecilia is no more sympathetic, not helped by a one dimensional performance from Knightley. I'm not a great fan of McEvoy but he's alright, The scenes in Belgium are the best, as in the book, the hellish realities of Dunkirk being well conveyed by Joe Wright's direction.
11. The Other Man ( 2008 )
12. Glorious 39 ( 2009 )
See the Jenny Agutter post for details of this one
13. Junkhearts ( 2011 )
14 One Day ( 2011 )
Romola was second lead female in this romantic comedy drama adapted from a David Nicholls novel.
Emma ( Anne Hathaway ) and Dexter ( Jim Sturgess ) meet on their graduation day in 1988, which is also St Swithin's Day , and after a fumbled attempt at going to bed agree to stay friends. The film then follows where they are on the same day for the next 20 years. She's a well meaning bookworm who ends up a teacher. He's an airhead (we never find out his subject area ) getting by on his looks and wealthy background, who becomes a vacuous TV presenter. Despite both getting into relationships with someone more suitable, she with mediocre comedian Ian ( Rafe Spall ), he with sexy Sylvie ( Romola ), they both continue to hold a candle for each other.
I'm afraid I just found it boring and irritating primarily because the opening scene doesn't make sense and the ensuing relationship isn't believable. The performances are OK but the dialogue is terrible, making scenes that are intended to be moving, like Dexter's last meeting with his dying mother ( Patricia Clarkson ), embarrassing. The scene where Ian and Dexter reminisce together is so phoney it puts your teeth on edge .
Romola does what she can with a thankless role but to be honest not having much to say in this one is a huge advantage.
15 Having You ( 2013 )
16. The Last Days On Mars ( 2013 )
Romola took a left turn into science fiction with this one.
It's a British film with a limited budget but decent cast. It's the 2040s and a tired and fractious team of research scientists are coming towards the end of a six-month stint on Mars. At virtually the last minute, Marko ( Goran Kostic ) discovers some bacterial life in a sand sample but falls into a sinkhole at his moment of triumph, apparently to his death. When the crew set out to recover his body, they soon realise that what they have disturbed is anything but benign.
Director Ruari Robinson didn't make any great claim to originality and the film certainly doesn't have any with Alien, 28 Days Later and Red Planet only the most obvious reference points. You're expecting some differentiating little twist which never arrives. There's plenty of action though it's often muddled by the characters all wearing the space suits so you don't know who's fighting who. It also makes a grave error in killing off the most interesting character too soon.
That said it's still fairly enjoyable. The gloomy atmosphere is well sustained and Romola and lead actor Liev Schreiber make an engaging couple
17 Suffragette ( 2015 )
18 Dominion ( 2016 )
19 Last Call ( 2017)
20 The Windermere Children (2020)
21 Miss Marx (2020)
22 Earwig (2020)
23 The Critic (2023)
24 One Life (2023)
25 Scoop (2024)
