MY LADY, a strong woman who wavers – Review

For his latest film, MY LADY, the director Richard Eyre draws up the beautiful portrait of a strong woman, in which the torments of the life to influence his business decisions.

When Fiona May, a british judge for family affairs, gets into the High Courtyard to listen to the parties and make a decision, it’s done announce it by the title of My Lady. Mastering and applying the law of the Children Act, it must analyze and resolve quickly difficult situations, sometimes under the pressure of time. This is a woman focused, disciplined, almost rigid, all dedicated to his work. His life tidy and leaves no room for spontaneity. Only the piano and music offer him some entertainment, and yet, it is done with serious.

The director Richard Eyre, who seems to like to address how women of a certain age react in the face of adversity – we remember Chronicles of a scandal – gives to see Fiona at a key moment of his life. In a few days, Fiona will imperceptibly wobbling and behaving in a way that is different and unusual for a judge. It is the announcement of her husband Jack / Stanley Tucci (Spotlight), still very much in love but who feels helpless, wanting to have an affair, which makes it vulnerable and destabilizing. His world and the confidence she had in her husband’s collapse. The director discusses, and in MY LADY the disintegration of a couple installed of notables, without the theatricality often made, but with a certain bitterness. He skillfully puts the viewer in the face its own questions of balance sometimes impossible between professional and private life and its impact on life choices, such as deciding not to have children.

It’s Emma Thompson (Alone in Berlin) who lends her traits to Fiona May. And it excels in its interpretation as well as shades. You can feel the storm in it, and yet nothing is reflected. Representing Justice and the Law, bearing on his shoulders an enormous responsibility that she is extremely conscious, she must remain dignified. Only his faithful clerk perceives the changes, but never pointed out to her.

Beautiful tribute to the work of those who make justice, MY LADY, lets go to meet a woman who reconnects with her emotions and allow ourselves to feel them.

The interest of MY LADY, also lies in the very nature of the business exciting processed in court, thanks to the good ideas of Ian McEwan, the author of the book of the same name, and writer. The main case concerns, therefore, this young man still a minor suffering from leukemia, but the blood transfusions necessary for the treatment can not be made because of his membership in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And here one enters fully into a conflict rarely touched upon in cinema between law and religion -or sect, according to the appreciations of each other.

The exchanges in court and the unusual encounter with the young Adam / Fionn Whitehead (Dunkirk) allow the viewer, without judging them, to better understand such issues of religious and societal. The film also allows to speculate on the possible influences and manipulations of the spiritual guides and the price to be paid in this vise unbearable for some families to want to continue to adhere to principles at the expense of life. MY LADY arrives, and it is rare enough to be stressed, to position the spectator as if he were the Judge listening to the arguments of each other. In fact, one feels empathy for all the characters, without exception.

The suspense, the dialogues and the staging of MY LADY certainly do not have the effects flamboyant of the courts of the american series. They are on the contrary to the image phlegmatic of My Lady, who stands a good distance away from his emotions and keep a cool head: a mix of firmness and measurement. And then, the film has the good idea not to stop the judgment itself. We will not tell you anything of the suite which is out of the ordinary, if it is not that it is a little troubling and that the characters are faced with decisions destabilizing, forcing them to reveal new parts of themselves. Beautiful tribute to the work of those who make justice, MY LADY, so you go to the beautiful encounter of a woman who reconnects with her emotions and allow ourselves to feel them, without a bad conscience.

Sylvie-Noelle

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