Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci star in this adaptation of the novel by Ian McEwan, about a high-court judge (Thompson) who finds personal and professional crises colliding when she is asked to rule in the case of a brilliant 18-year-old boy who is refusing the blood transfusion that would save his life.

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Special Presentations

The Children Act

Richard Eyre

Adapted by Booker Prize–winning author Ian McEwan from his own novel, this riveting drama stars two-time Academy Award winner Emma Thompson as a British High Court judge tasked with making a decision that will speak to our most fraught questions regarding religious tolerance — and could mean life or death for an innocent young man.

Judge Fiona Maye (Thompson) is married to her work, which has become a problem for her husband, Jack (Stanley Tucci), who announces that he wants to have an affair. Treating the matter more as an annoyance than a life-altering crisis, Fiona kicks Jack out and focuses on her current case. The question: should a couple who are Jehovah's Witnesses be permitted to deny a life-saving blood transfusion to their leukemia-stricken 17-year-old son (Fionn Whitehead)? Fiona finds herself taking unusual measures to determine her verdict — measures that will have far-reaching consequences.

Directed by Richard Eyre (Notes on a Scandal), The Children Act brims with intelligence, sophistication, and intrigue. The elevated tension places unusual focus on its protagonist's every word and gesture — a challenge Thompson meets with virtuosity. Her Fiona is a cauldron of conflicted feelings bubbling beneath a veneer of composure. As she finds herself sliding deeper into a mire of professional compromise and personal desperation, we come to empathize with her singular burden… and wait for the outcome with keen anticipation.

CAMERON BAILEY

Screenings

Sat Sep 09

Elgin Theatre

Regular
2:30pm
Sun Sep 10

Bell Lightbox 1

Regular
8:45am
Mon Sep 11

Scotiabank 12

Press
1:45pm
Wed Sep 13

Scotiabank 4

Press
1:30pm