Female Film Critics 24/375
Director Phyllida Lloyd dramatizes a complex, difficult issue in Herself, namely, domestic abuse and the struggle to escape its emotional and physical toll. Nurturing her girls Emma and Molly, while fending off husband Gary’s manipulative intimidation, Sandra must honor his court-required weekend visitations, even though Molly sobs and begs to opt out of any time with her father.
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It’s a good thing Phyllida Lloyd felt it was high time to helm a small indie film, casting Clare Dunne and Harriet Walter, the first a little-known but extremely talented actress from Dublin, the other, one of the most acclaimed and awarded performers in Britain in Herself. When Dunne penned a screenplay about a woman breaking the cycle of abuse and rebuilding her life through building her own house, she sent it to Lloyd for feedback. And now we have a superb film.
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Phyllida Lloyd has long been committed to supporting and promoting women in film, theater, and opera. From early in her career, she has placed women in traditionally male-centered stories or focused on the female perspective, creating conversation about women’s place in the power positions of history and literature. Lloyd’s new film Herself is by far the smallest, lowest budgeted film she’s ever worked on. As part of directing the indie film, she required Clare Dunne, the film’s screenwriter, with whom she had worked many times before onstage, would be the star of the film she penned.
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