Anna Friel Movies
A staple of British soap operas before she was even out of her teens, Anna Friel experienced the type of fame encouraged by tabloids and Internet shrines before getting a chance to prove her talents on the stage and screen. Born in Rochdale, Lancashire on July 12, 1976, Friel began acting as a teenager, performing with theatres across Britain. In 1990, she made her television debut with a role on the BBC series In Their Shoes, and was soon appearing in a number of popular TV series, including Coronation Street and Emmerdale. She received her greatest amount of notice to date when she was cast on the soap opera Brookside in 1993; the resulting popularity of her role on the show made the waifish, saucer-eyed actress something of a celebrity in her native country.In 1997--two years after leaving Brookside--Friel made her film debut in The Land Girls. A World War II drama, it featured Friel, Rachel Weisz and Catherine McCormack as its titular heroines. Although the film was virtually unheard of outside the UK, it received generally favorable reviews. The following year, Friel appeared in two more films, The Stringer and Rogue Trader, the latter of which had her starring opposite Ewan McGregor. That same year, she won great acclaim on the London stage for her performance in Patrick Marber's Closer. A trenchant commentary on love and sex, it featured the young actress as an enigmatic stripper, and allowed her to work alongside such performers as Natasha Richardson, Ciaran Hinds and Rupert Graves. The play proved to be so successful that it moved to Broadway the next year, where it continued to win accolade after accolade. Friel herself won a Drama Desk award for Best Supporting Actress for her work. That same year, she continued to broaden her resume and fan base with starring roles in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Sunset Strip, the former of which featured her as Hermia, and the latter of which saw her experiencing the ups and downs of life in 1972 Los Angeles. Following roles in The War Bride and Me Without You (both 2001) Friel continued to develop her onscreen persona, and with Richard Donner's time travel adventure Timeline (2003) the actress remained poised for the role that would provide her with her widest exposure to date.
In 2005, Friel appeared in the sports drama Goal!, about a Los Angeles teenager with dreams of becoming a professional soccer player. She also appeared alongside Kevin Pollak in the drama Niagra Motel, which found a group of seemingly disparate strangers connecting when they pass through the same motel. Then in 2007, Friel joined the cast of the new series Pushing Daisies, about a man who falls in love with a deceased woman after he discovers he can communicate with the dead. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- 2008
The infamous Countess Erzsebet Bathory, who is said to have maintained youth and beauty into her old age by bathing in the blood of virgins, has her life story told in a more balanced but still provocative manner in this grand-scale historical drama. Bathory, played by Anna Freil, is portrayed in three important episodes from her life. Bathory falls in love with the legendary artist Caravaggio (Hans Matheson) and attempts to win his heart, which doesn't much amuse her husband Ferenc Nadasy (Vincent Regan). Later, Bathory becomes close friends with Darvulia (Deana Jakubiskova), a woman said to have remarkable healing powers, as observers remark upon Bathory's beauty which seems impervious to the passage of time or the stress of her life. And after the death of her husband, Bathory rises to a position of political power in Hungary, as Palatine Thurzo (Karel Roden) leads a plot to scuttle her ambitions. Bathory also features Bolek Polivka as a monk who narrates the countess's remarkable story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Friel, Vincent Regan, (more)
A South Central, LA con-artist finds that his rhyming skills can pay off in the least likely of venues after winning a poetry contest staged by a financially strapped Irish town in this fish out of water comedy starring Eddie Griffin and Mo'Nique. Ballywood, Ireland is a town with a cash flow problem; but the citizens aren't about to go down without a fight. With the banks set to foreclose and the future looking grim, the citizens of Ballywood decide to save their town by staging a poetry contest and using the entry fees to keep the moneymen at bay. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, hustler Jimmie (Griffin) is having a hard time shaking off hungry bill collectors and a jilted lover with a mind for marriage. His options dwindling and his future looking increasingly grim, Jimmy determines to use his gift for gab to take home the top prize at the Ballywood poetry contest and leave both the collectors and his clingy girlfriend at a loss for words. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Griffin, Anna Friel, (more)
- 2004
Though Lloyd Rockwell (Rob Lowe) and Susie Wilding (Anna Friel) both work for the same international advertising agency, they have never met: Lloyd lives in New York, while Susie is headquartered in London. New developments in their professional lives compel Lloyd and Susie to trade places, with Lloyd moving into Susie's cluttered suburban-London cottage, and Susie relocating to Lloyd's streamlined Manhattan apartment. Whenever domestic or job-related problems arise, Lloyd and Susie contact each other by phone--a painful process, inasmuch as they don't like each other. But this situation reverses itself after Susie comes to Lloyd's rescue when he is sabotaged by a duplicitous coworker. Only oe problem remaining: Lloyd is already engaged to be married. Filmed in Toronto and London, the made-for-TV Perfect Strangers was based on the book by Robyn Sisman) and produced by the same team responsible for Bridget Jones' Diary: the film debuted October 17, 2004, on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rob Lowe, Anna Friel, (more)
A deeply spiritual war bride attempts to adjust to the slower pace of rural life after relocating from lively London to her new husband's remote farm in Canada in a soulful tale of wartime relationships based on actual events and starring Anna Friel. Upon arrival at her new husband Charlie's picturesque farm, Lily (Friel) struggles to earn the respect of Charlie's stern, traditional-minded mother (Brenda Fricker) and deeply embittered sister (Moly Parker). Though relations are strained, the true test of what it takes to make a family emerges when Charlie returns from the war and attempts to find a peaceful common ground among the disagreeable women. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2001
Anna Friel and Aden Young star in this romantic drama set against the backdrop of World War II, and following a wide-eyed London girl who falls for a Canadian soldier. The year is 1943, and as war wages across Europe, vivacious young Lily becomes smitten with rugged Canadian Charlie. The couple soon enters into a whirlwind romance, and after Lily becomes pregnant Charlie is forced to return to the front lines. Later, Lily and her daughter travel to Canada with Charlie, eager to start a new life on his family's peaceful, countryside ranch. Upon arriving in the Great White North, however, this optimistic war bride quickly discovers that her new husband's family "ranch" is actually a decrepit old farm house further removed from the big city than she could have ever imagined. And, though Charlie's embittered mother (Brenda Fricker) and sister (Molly Parker) prove particularly unwelcoming to the unassuming girl from London, Lily vows that her spirit will not be broken and her daughter will be raised in a happy home. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Friel, Brenda Fricker, (more)
- 2000
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Jacques St. Ives (Jean Marc Barr) is a much-envied officer in Napoleon's army who requests a demotion in rank so as to avoid a number of duels from fellow officers, who may challenge only those of an equal rank. To his shock, Jacques is demoted to the rank of private by a furious commander and is sent to the front where, through a mishap, he is taken prisoner and sent to Scotland where the prison warden is a bored British officer, Major Farquar Chevening (Richard E. Grant). The major lusts for a local lovely, Flora (Anna Friel), but she lusts for Jacques; Flora's randy aunt Susan has eyes for the major, while Flora arranges an escape for Jacques with his long-lost grandfather, and the major takes lessons in womanizing from Jacques. In a nasty turn, St. Ives' bitter and violent brother (Jason Isaacs) plots to kill Jacques before he can assume their grandfather's inheritance. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide
Based on the tell-all autobiography by Nick Leeson, Rogue Trader tells the true story of how one man managed to bring down England's best respected merchant bank. Ewan McGregor plays Leeson, an ambitious young man from North London who is hired by the Barings Brothers Bank and sent to Indonesia to help untangle some problems with bearer bonds. Leeson does well enough to earn a transfer to Singapore, where he's put in charge of Barings' staff at the Singapore International Money Exchange. The Asian economy is booming and a variety of new financial strategies are changing the shape of the marketplace; while his superiors in London are a bit baffled by the range of possibilities, Leeson takes to the work like a duck to water, and he's soon trusted to do as he pleases. This eventually proves to be his downfall; without a separate team watching the accounts in the back office, Leeson is soon juggling figures to cover up for certain mistakes and gambling on the market with the bank's funds, not just their clients'. In 1995, Leeson's schemes finally collaped, leaving Barings bankrupt; Nick and his wife (another Barings employee) tried to flee the country to avoid arrest. Leeson was eventually sentenced to six-and-a-half years in a Singapore prison for his financial misdeeds; he was released after four years and four months, a week before Rogue Trader opened in British theaters. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ewan McGregor, Anna Friel, (more)
In this psychological drama, a real estate developer buys an old house in London, only to discover a group of bohemian squatters happen to be living there. While the developer intends to evict them, he soon finds himself intrigued by their lifestyle of free love and drug-fueled philosophical experimentation, and the longer he observes them, the more he longs to become a part of their world. Produced for the BBC, The Tribe stars Joely Richardson, Jeremy Northam, and Anna Friel. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joely Richardson, Jeremy Northam, (more)
One of several British miniseries adaptations of Charles Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend, this four-part version debuted over the BBC in 1998. The production's generous running time (total: six hours), enabled scenarist Sandy Welch to include virtually every important detail in this complex Victorian-era saga of how a mysterious waterfront death inextricably linked the lives of two young women, Lizzie Hexam (Keeley Hawes) and Bella Wilfer (Anna Friel). The richness of the Dickensian prose was complemented by the visuals, which incorporated everything from documentary-style handheld camerawork to Eisenstein-ish montages, and by the eerily polytonal musical score by Adrian Johnston. Our Mutual Friend was brought to America courtesy of PBS beginning January 3, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul McGann, Keeley Hawes, (more)
- 1998
Mad Cows is a slapstick comedy about sex and the singles scene. Single and confused Maddy has just had a baby. The first day that she goes out with her baby, she gets arrested at Harrods for shoplifting. While in detention at the Holloway Prison's Mother and Baby Unit, she smuggles Jack out in her friend's handbag. She seeks help from her ex-lover Alex, who is sure he is god's gift to women. In the meanwhile, the prison psychotherapist Edwina Phelps is on Maddy's back. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Friel, Joanna Lumley, (more)
- 1998
This drama from British TV documentarian Paul Pawlikowski was filmed in Russia, Poland, and the UK. Young TV news cameraman Vadik (Sergei Bodrov Jr. of Prisoner of the Mountain and The Brother) roams post-Cold War Russia shooting footage he can sell to Western news outlets. A romance gets underway when he meets British TV producer Helen (Anna Friel), and he also develops a friendship with eccentric nationalist politician Yavorsky (Vladimir Ilyin), a character patterned after Vladimir Zhirinovsky. After Vadik films an assassination attempt on Yavorsky, he learns the assassination was faked. Shown in the Directors Fortnight section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sergei Bodrov Jr., Anna Friel, (more)
- 1996
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In acquiescence to the wish of the Prior of Shrewsbury Abbey to have the bones of St. Winifred on display, a group of monks trek to Wales to dig up her remains. The monks are met with great hostility that escalates when a man opposed to their excavation is found dead. The monks are held under suspicion, and things are further complicated by a young monk's insistence that he is seeing visions of St. Winifred. Although Cadfael (Derek Jacobi) exposes the monk's vision as fraudulent, he withholds the truth behind the monk's lies. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
The joys and horrors of female friendship are explored in writer/director Sandra Goldbacher's Me Without You. Bold, brash, and fashionable Marina (played by Anna Popplewell as a child, and Anna Friel as a teen and adult) comes from a broken home. Her mother, Linda (Trudie Styler, who executive produced Guy Ritchie's first two films, and is also Sting's wife) is a hip young divorcée who apologizes every time she yells at her children. Holly (Ella Jones as a child, Michelle Williams of Dawson's Creek and Dick as a teen and adult) is a timid bookworm, mildly ashamed of her Jewishness, and easily goaded into more outrageous behavior by Marina. Holly's mother (Deborah Findlay) tells her early on not to expect too much from men. She helps lower her daughter's expectations by telling her, "Some people are pretty people, and some are clever people, which is more important than looks." As girls in the early '70s, Marina and Holly form a pact to become "Harina," inseparable best friends. Next-door neighbors, they are never apart for long. But Holly harbors a secret crush on Marina's older brother, Nat (Oliver Milburn), and when the girls are teens, and Marina finds out about Holly's feelings, she does her best to keep the two apart. In college, when Holly bonds with a lit-crit professor, Daniel (Kyle Maclachlan), over Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman, Holly feels compelled to sabotage their budding relationship, by seducing Daniel first. Eventually, Nat, despite his lingering fondness for Holly, gets seriously involved with a French actress, Isabel (Marianne Denicourt). As the girls get older, their differences become more apparent to Holly, and she begins to question their friendship. The film covers three decades, with songs and costumes appropriate to each era. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Friel, Michelle Williams, (more)
Director Barry Levinson attempts to repeat the success of several recent, low-budget British imports such as The Full Monty (1997), Waking Ned Devine (1998), and Saving Grace (2000) with this comedy about a pair of prison barbers trying to make a success of a hairpiece business in Northern Ireland. Colm (Barry McEvoy), a Catholic, and George (Brian F. O'Byrne), a Protestant, are friends who toil away in a lackluster job cutting the hair of convicts in a prison for the insane where Colm's girlfriend Bronagh (Anna Friel) also works. When the two lads hear of a prisoner nicknamed The Scalper (Billy Connolly), they learn that he was the only seller of hairpieces in the country, and decide to begin crafting their own toupees for sale as a way to start their own business. As they ply their wares through the war-torn country, the friends are not above using their respective religions to make sales, but competition soon arrives in the form of Toupee or Not Toupee, a rival company, and a race to be the first outfit to sell 30 units quickly ensues. Politics, business, and religious beliefs soon intersect to cause big trouble for both men. Actor McEvoy also wrote the script for An Everlasting Piece, loosely basing his character on his real-life father. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barry McEvoy, Brian F. O'Byrne, (more)
The days when glam rock at its shaggiest ruled L.A.'s Sunset Strip come alive in this comedy set in 1972. On one day, a number of young artists, musicians, and seekers of fame and fortune find their lives intersecting in the sometimes sleazy heart of California's hipster community, including struggling fashion designer Tammy (Anna Friel), pretentious photographer Michael (Simon Baker), sensitive songwriter Felix (Rory Cochrane), and his dashiki-clad manager Green (Adam Goldberg). Sunset Strip was co-written by Randall Jahnson, who previously examined the rock scene in his scripts for The Doors and Dudes; Adam Collis made his directorial debut with this film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Friel, Simon Baker, (more)
- 1997
- R
David Leland (Wish You Were Here) directed this adaptation of Angela Huth's novel about the British Women's Land Army (aka "land girls"), a WW II regiment which recruited women to work on farms during the war. The volunteer "land girls," from all walks of life, were dispatched across the British countryside to replace the farm workers who had gone to the front. Answering the call and ready to pitch in, three young WLA women arrive at a remote farm in the Dorset countryside. Romantic Stella (Catherine McCormack) plans to wed naval officer Philip (Paul Bettany). Cambridge grad Ag (Rachel Weisz) is quirky and cerebral. Working-class Prue (Anna Friel) is a flirt whose impudent wit conceals her innocence. The farm is owned by the Lawrences (Tom Georgeson, Maureen O'Brien), whose handsome son Joe (Steven Mackintosh) gets involved with all three land girls. Joe dreams of leaving the family farm to become a fighter pilot, but he's thwarted by health problems. For the women, the work is hard, the days are long, and the war is never far from their thoughts. But the women's camaraderie strengthens them, individually and as a unit. They form close friendships with each other, and Stella finds true love with Joe. All experience exhilaration and passion, and with the war's end, altered destinies (revealed in an epilogue in which the land girls are reunited some years after the war). The soundtrack features memorable '40s songs. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Catherine McCormack, Rachel Weisz, (more)
This big-screen adaptation of Land of the Lost stars Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall, a quantum paleontologist who has been discredited in the scientific world due to his strident belief in time travel as the cure for all of humanity's problems. After hitting an all-time low, giving a lecture to elementary school kids, Dr. Marshall meets an ambitious young scientist named Holly (Anna Friel), who tells him she has followed all his work and believes he's a genius. Spurred on by her enthusiasm, he finishes building the device that will allow him to time travel -- something he promptly does along with Holly, and white-trash fireworks salesman Will (Danny McBride), after Will leads them into a cave that seems like a promising place to test the new machine. They end up in a world full of dinosaurs, sand, and scary lizard-like creatures known as Sleestacks. They quickly lose the machine that brought them to this alternate universe, and if they ever want to return home, the trio must recover it with the help of Chaka (Jorma Taccone), the monkey-like friend they make in this strange place. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Will Ferrell, Danny R. McBride, (more)
The Jaume Collet-Serra-directed comedy drama Goal! 2: Living the Dream finds star European soccer player Santiago Muñez (Kuno Becker) bumped by his agent (Stephen Dillane) from England's Newcastle United team to Real Madrid's Galácticos, where he is thrilled to play alongside field legends David Beckham, Ronaldo, Zinedine Zidane, and others. In off-time, temptation lingers in the form of amorous dalliances with spicy local women, especially the TV hostess Jordana (Leonor Varela) -- a relationship that threatens the security of his marital engagement to Geordie nurse Roz (Anna Friel), who has accompanied him to Spain. During his time in Madrid, Santiago also discovers, most unexpectedly and poignantly, what happened to the mother who abandoned him during his early childhood. Alessandro Nivola co-stars as Santiago's pal Gavin. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anna Friel, Rutger Hauer, (more)
- 2005
- PG13
A handful of oddballs and misfits cross paths at a motel overlooking one of Canada's more recognizable landmarks in this independent comedy. Phillie (Craig Ferguson) is the alcoholic and deeply depressed manager of the Niagara Motel, a shabby inn a stone's throw from the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. Phillie's guests at the moment include Michael (Kevin Pollak), a sleazy director and producer of porn videos who is attempting to persuade Loretta (Caroline Dhavernas), a pretty young waitress at a nearby diner, to star in his latest series of adult movies; Denise (Anna Friel) and R.J. (Kristen Holden- Reid), a drug-addled couple struggling to regain custody of their child; Henry (Peter Keleghan) and Lily (Wendy Crewson), whose marriage is already starting to crumble before temptation presents itself to Lily; and Boris (Damir Andrei), the Niagara's short-tempered owner. Over the course of their stays, the folks staying at the Niagara will witness an unplanned kidnapping, meet the motel's in-house prostitute, encounter a down-on-his-luck staple salesman, and get uncalled-for advice from a born-again social worker. Niagara Motel received its world premiere at the 2005 New Montreal Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Craig Ferguson, Anna Friel, (more)
Directing his first film since 1998's Lethal Weapon 4, Richard Donner helmed this big-budget adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel of the same name. Featuring a script by first-time screenwriter George Nolfi, Timeline begins in France in the near future. A group of students from Yale are there studying a medieval site, when their professor, played by Billy Connolly, mysteriously goes missing. To make matters more enigmatic, the students are then taken back to the United States by a shadowy technology company called ITC, led by Robert Doniger (David Thewlis). The eccentric Doniger explains that because of a machine that his company built, their professor is trapped in 14th century France. In order to rescue him, two of the students, Chris Hughes (Paul Walker) and Kate Erickson (Frances O'Connor), along with Andre Marek (Gerard Butler), an archeological site manager, must travel to France, circa 1357, amid archaic war, deadly diseases, and other unexpected pitfalls. Meanwhile, David Stern (Ethan Embry), a third student, stays behind to keep an eye on the shady Doniger. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, (more)
