An emotionally involving film, this - I spent nearly the whole time with my arms wrapped around myself or with one hand pressed to my forehead in a kind of warding-off gesture, and realised at a couple of points that I had almost forgotten to breathe. Sometimes films take me like that, and I think that it mainly has to do with my sympathising with the characters - I squirm and wince and feel awkward and embarrassed for them...it's a very immediate experience, and I don't think it depends at all on being able to imagine myself in their shoes - just the depiction itself is enough.
Actually, the last film which provoked this sort of response in me was Punch-Drunk Love, and it may not be entirely coincidental that Emily Watson was also in that one; she's an astonishingly good actor, and I can still vividly recall how much of a punch in the guts Breaking The Waves - the first thing I saw her in - was when I watched it years ago (much as I loved it, I haven't been able to bear the thought of watching the film since). In Hilary and Jackie, as Jacqueline du Pré, she's utterly compelling - you can't take your eyes off her, and yet some of her scenes are almost unbearable to watch because of the awkwardness and rawness of her character. And Rachel Griffiths is just as good, as her sister, Hilary - in every way, she's just exactly right...both ring completely true.
This film could easily have been boring (because it's so unassuming in its conception) or tritely melodramatic (because the feelings and relationships are so deeply felt and sometimes extravagantly expressed), but both performances and screenplay are perfectly pitched and so instead it's simply lovely...one of those films that, in its modest, poignant way, is about nothing more nor less than what it is to be human and alive.
