Lia Williams Movies

The off-beat love story between Paul and Kim provides the framework of this quirky British melodrama. The two meet after the taxi in which the attractive Kim rides collides with manly courier Paul and his motorcycle. Paul is utterly fascinated with Kim and swears that he has seen her before. He has. In fact the two were childhood friends in Catholic boys school, but back then, before the operation, Kim was named Karl. Now as a woman, Kim works as a successful writer for a greeting-card company while Paul, still wild and irresponsible, gets work while he can. The two gingerly renew their friendship and eventually it becomes something much deeper. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A woman is torn by both romantic and maternal love in this period romantic drama set in the 1830s. Elisabeth (Sophie Marceau), a Swiss governess, is the beautiful daughter of a once-prosperous landowner who has fallen deeply into debt. Charles Godwin (Stephen Dillane) is a prominent British aristocrat whose wife has suffered a crippling accident; doomed to spend the rest of her life in a semi-comatose state, she cannot bear Charles the child he so desperately needs. So Charles strikes an agreement with Elisabeth; she will conceive a child with him and hand it over after it is born in exchange for him paying off her father's debts. Elisabeth and Charles set aside three nights to make a baby, and while the matter is supposed to be purely functional and not romantic, Elisabeth finds it difficult to feel that way at the end of the third evening. She is heartbroken when she has to give up the child, and her obsession with the daughter she gave away is reflected in her journals and sketchbooks. Seven years later, Elisabeth discovers the whereabouts of Charles and their daughter, Louisa (Dominique Belcourt); when she learns they need a governess, she is hired for the position by Charles's sister-in-law Constance (Lia Williams), who is unaware that Elisabeth is Louisa's birth mother. When Charles discovers that Elisabeth is the new governess, he is furious, but he eventually takes pity on her and allows her to stay with the child for one month. However, before long, Elisabeth's attraction to Charles resurfaces, and their clandestine romance forces a number difficult questions. Firelight marked the directorial debut of noted screenwriter William Nicholson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A woman is married to a wonderful man and is expecting twins. Still, she yearns for more and begins an affair with an antiques dealer. The woman recruits her sister to collaborate in the deception. The sister has feelings for her brother-in-law and after a confrontation, ends up in bed with him. The relationships of all the characters are put to the test in this three-part TV drama. ~ All Movie Guide

Tom Berenger and Joely Richardson star in this live-action adaptation of Susan Wojciechowski's beloved children's tome, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey. The fable centers around two lonely, broken people. Jonathan Toomey (Berenger) is a woodcutter who buried his ability to love when he lost his wife and child in a horrid accident, and thus earned the nickname Gloomy at the hands of misunderstanding local children. Thomas McDowell (newcomer Luke Ward-Wilkinson) watched quietly as the death of his father ripped away his childhood innocence - and destroyed his world. Now, Thomas's single mother, Susan (Richardson) must sell their urban home and move, son-in-tow, into the countryside to live with her sister. When Thomas grows virtually inconsolable over the loss of a wooden manger scene bequeathed to him by his dad, Susan asks Jonathan to carve a new one for the young boy. In time, a most unexpected friendship blossoms between Thomas and the old woodcutter, that heals the wounds and melts the heart of each broken soul. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Shot against the barren sand dunes of Africa's Namib Desert, The King Is Alive is the fourth film to adhere to the stripped-down aesthetic of the Dogma 95 movement, and the first to bear the directorial stamp of the manifesto's co-author Kristian Levring. The improvised, shot-on-digital video production concerns the exploits of almost a dozen tourists who find themselves stranded when their bus breaks down miles from civilization. A thespian amongst the group, Henry (David Bradley), is the first to suggest that their situation may be more dire than it seems. His doubts send the rest of the folks -- including American travelers Ray (Bruce Davison), Liz (Janet McTeer), Ashley (Brion James), and Gina (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and a high-minded Parisian, Catherine (Romane Bohringer) -- into fits of fear and dread. To get their minds off the heat, hunger, and dehydration, the castaways stage an impromptu reading of Shakespeare's King Lear, which they can only fitfully remember. As their situations worsen, the tourists begin to take out their personal aggressions on one another. The King Is Alive was shown as part of the 2000 Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide