Janet McTeer Movies
Although British audiences had been familiar with her work since the mid-'80s, it wasn't until Janet McTeer's Oscar-nominated performance in 1999's Tumbleweeds that American filmgoers also began to take notice. A Newcastle native whose versatile physical features compliment her ability to truly realize a character (no matter how foreign), McTeer made her film debut opposite screen siren Sigourney Weaver in the 1986 feature Half Moon Street. Though her looks and talent for intense personal drama made comparisons to veteran star Vanessa Redgrave common, McTeer soon distinguished herself on the London stage with roles in The Grace of Mary Traverse and Greenland, small-screen parts in Precious Bane (1989) and Portrait of a Marriage (1990) proved that her talent transferred outside the theater, as well. Critics also singled out her performance in the 1992 adaptation of Wuthering Heights. That same year, McTeer stepped into the shoes of super-sleuthing professor Loretta Lawson in the made-for-TV mystery A Masculine Ending, and she reprised the role in the following year's Don't Leave Me This Way. It was her turn as a determined prison warden in the popular U.K. series The Governor, however, that found McTeer truly coming into her own on television. Her imposing (six foot-one inch) frame and emotional vulnerability worked in perfect harmony to create a compelling character, and McTeer began to become a familiar face to PBS viewers in the U.S. thanks to roles in such efforts as Precious Bane (1989) and The Black Velvet Gown (1991).After winning both Olivier and Tony awards in 1997 for her performance in the stage version of A Doll's House, McTeer began to work almost exclusively in films. Just a year after she made a vocal impression on stateside audiences as the narrator of Todd Haynes' glam rock-tribute Velvet Goldmine in 1998, American audiences were offered a face to accompany the voice (though thanks to her masterful Southern accent, they may not have recognized it) with the release of the mother/daughter road drama Tumbleweeds. Cast as a nomadic, free-spirited mother, McTeer's Oscar-nominated performance left quite an impression, even if the film itself ultimately didn't. The actress followed this film with three titles in 2000: Waking the Dead, Songcatcher, and The King Is Alive. She then took a two-year break from the screen before returning with 2002's The Intended, which she also co-wrote.
McTeer continued to work steadily on the stage, on TV, and in movies, but her next big awards splash came in 2011 when her supporting work in the gender-bending drama Albert Nobbs garnered her nominations from the Academy, the Golden Globes, and the Screen Actors Guild. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
A widowed lawyer travels to a secluded village on an important assignment, and encounters a vengeful ghost with mysterious motives. After losing his beloved wife in childbirth, young barrister Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) was nearly consumed by grief. A haunted widower father, he raises his young son with the help of his devoted nanny. Arthur is on the verge of losing his job when an important client of the firm dies, and his boss offers him one last opportunity to prove his worth by settling the woman's affairs. Determined to succeed, Arthur travels to the remote village and receives a chilly welcome. Something horrible once happened here, and it seems that the locals are determined to ensure Arthur never finds out what it was. Now, the more time Arthur spends in his client's crumbling estate, the more aware he becomes of a presence that isn't quite human. In this house dwells a woman's ghost. In life she lost something precious, and now in death she'll do whatever it takes to get it back. Until she does, her spectral presence will serve as a harbinger of doom, always to be followed by the death of an innocent. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Daniel Radcliffe, Ciarán Hinds, (more)
Glenn Close co-wrote and stars in this period drama based on the short story The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs by author George Moore, centering on the experiences of a 19th century Irish woman who poses as a man in order to work as a butler at an opulent Dublin hotel for the upper class. Maintaining her elaborate ruse over the course of two decades, Albert (Close) suddenly finds her dedication to the role challenged by the unexpected arrival of a painter who turns out to understand Albert better than anyone she could have imagined. Meanwhile, Albert finds her attempts to help pretty hotel maid Helen (Mia Wasikowska) thwarted when Helen becomes enamored with a charming but callous handyman (Aaron Johnson). Albert Nobbs played at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Glenn Close, Mia Wasikowska, (more)
A wannabe chef and an unrepentant womanizer team up to start a detective agency, and quickly realize they've gotten in over their heads when their first job lands them smack in the middle of a massive government conspiracy. Anthony and his best friend, Julian, have yet to live up to their full potential. When Anthony realizes he's never going to become a five-star chef and Julian grows weary of playing the constant lothario, the two lifelong pals turn to sleuthing to make ends meet. Their first client is a smoldering top-dollar escort with evidence of a high-profile cover-up. At first they do their best to keep control of the situation, but when a shady U.S. senator comes knocking, the mob shows up guns blazing, and a most unusual assassin gets them locked in her sights, the only way to survive is to run like the devil and never look back. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paz Vega, Janet McTeer, (more)
- 2009
- Add Into the Storm: Churchill at War to Queue Add Into the Storm: Churchill at War to top of Queue
A sequel to HBO's award-winning film The Gathering Storm, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Into the Storm stars Brendan Gleeson as the intrepid British leader whose fiery rhetoric inspired Allied forces to fight back against Hitler's Germany to with everything they've got. As the flames of war spread throughout Europe, Winston Churchill rose to the call and became a national hero, disregarding the detrimental effects his actions had on both his political career and his marriage to lifelong supporter Clemmie (Janet McTeer) in a single-minded effort to defeat one of history's greatest tyrants. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brendan Gleeson, Janet McTeer, (more)
Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, and Dominic Cooper star in screenwriter Andrew Davies' adaptation of the classic Jane Austen tale of love and class conflict. Marianne Dashwood (Wakefield) has fallen deeply in love with John Willoughby (Cooper), yet despite their feelings for one another the wealthy Willoughby is considered an improper suitor for the financially destitute girl. Marianne's sister Elinor (Morahan)'s pleads with her sibling to end the romance or risk becoming the subject of gossip in their chatty social circle, all the while struggling to suppress her own romantic disappointment. So how does one find happiness in a society where the rules are set according to status and money? Perhaps a winning mix of sense and sensibility is the key to striking a harmonious balance, and living a life without regrets.
~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, (more)
Set over the course of five 24-hour periods, the television miniseries Five Days follows the case of a young mother (Christine Tremarco) who vanishes under mysterious circumstances while driving her children to visit their grandfather (Edward Woodward). When the children set out in search of their missing mother, they too seem to disappear without a trace. As a high-profile police investigation begins to make headlines across the country, it appears that everyone involved with the case, including the woman's grieving husband (David Oyelowo), has something to hide. Soon it begins to appear that even Detective Barclay (Hugh Bonneville) and Sergeant Foster (Janet McTeer), the two authority figures in charge of the investigation, are operating on some secret agenda. As the missing mother's parents (Penelope Wilton and Patrick Malahide) step up the pressure to solve the case before too much time passes, a stranger named Sarah (Sarah Smart) gradually works her way into the investigation while gradually ingraining herself with the frustrated family. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hugh Bonneville, Janet McTeer, (more)
As is well-known and frequently discussed, the gothically-inclined English woman of letters Daphne Du Maurier (Don't Look Now, Rebecca) also happened to be a lesbian, but virulently suppressed these inclinations given her beloved father's abhorrence to homosexual behavior - attitudes that Du Maurier imbibed and that gave her lifelong pangs of guilt and self-denial. She experienced two life-altering homosexual loves, however: an irreciprocal one for heterosexual Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her publisher Nelson Doubleday, and another for bisexual actress Gertrude Lawrence (Private Lives), which Lawrence purportedly helped her consummate. As created for Du Maurier's centenary, Claire Beavan's BBC production Daphne dramatizes the connection between these two relationships; Beavan pulls from private letters and memoirs to depict the series of events by which Du Maurier (here played by Geraldine Somerville) fell into an impassioned love for Doubleday (Elizabeth McGovern), and how the unrequited nature of that love spurred her on to author a play about forbidden romantic longings, September Tide - a play that, ironically, introduced her to the second great love of her life, Lawrence (Janet McTeer). In so doing, the film not only resurrects a long-buried and hidden part of Du Maurier's life, but explores the connection between life experiences and highly personalized artistic expression. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Geraldine Somerville, Elizabeth McGovern, (more)
Director Kenneth Branagh tackles the works of William Shakespeare for the fifth time in his career as a filmmaker with this adaptation of one of The Bard's most accessible works. Rosalind is the daughter of a banished duke, and lives among a community of Westerners living in 19th century Japan. When her father, the duke, is suddenly banished, the frightened girl is forced to flee for the Forest of Arden lest she risk being executed by her malevolent uncle. Joining Rosalind on her flight to the forest is her sympathetic cousin Celia, who helps to pass her incognito kin off as a man in order to avoid detection. Later, Rosalind's clever ruse begins to serve a dual purpose when she determines to use the disguise to gauge the devotion of Orlando, yet another exile, while making her way to the Forest of Arden. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Brian Blessed, Bryce Dallas Howard, (more)
Following the death of her drug-addicted mother, a whimsical young girl follows her chemically dependent father to a remote prairie house to discover a wondrous world of magical fireflies and nocturnal bog men in this hallucinatory childhood fantasy from visionary filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Noah (Jeff Bridges) is a burnt-out rock star whose post-superstar voyage to obscurity is hastened by a serious drug addiction that is also shared with his wild-eyed wife (Jennifer Tilly). When the Noah's increasingly erratic wife suffers a fatal overdose, the faded rock star opts to escape the painful reality by retreating to a ramshackle remote home with his young daughter, Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland). Left to her own devices as her father stumbles about the grasslands in a drug-induced haze, Jeliza-Rose soon ventures into her own fantasy land before making the acquaintance of mentally challenged youth Dickens (Brendan Fletcher). As the two become fast friends and Jeliza-Rose joins the swimsuit-clad Dickens in defeating the menacing shark that traverses the nearby railways, the pair are watched over by Dickens' black-clad sister, Dell (Janet McTeer), who acts as Dickens' guardian and whose overly enthusiastic interest in the art of taxidermy borders on obsessive. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jodelle Ferland, Janet McTeer, (more)
Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring directs the Dogme 95-inspired period drama The Intended, co-written by leading lady Janet McTeer. Shot with digital video, the film takes place in the Malaysia jungle during the 1920s. Fortysomething British woman Sarah (McTeer) travels with her younger fiancé, Hamish Winslow (JJ Feild), to a small community near Borneo. Hamish has been hired to survey the land and map a road for a trading post run by a deeply dysfunctional family. The local ruler is tough matriarch Mrs. Jones (Brenda Fricker), who dominates her son William (Tony Maudsley) and nephew Norton (Philip Jackson). When a climate change causes them to become even more isolated, the family tension takes a dark turn. Also starring Olympia Dukakis. The Intended premiered at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi
- Starring:
- Janet McTeer, Olympia Dukakis, (more)
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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Miles Anderson, Romane Bohringer, (more)
A man finds his melancholy turning to madness in this thriller. Young lawyer Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) has just thrown his hat in the ring for an upcoming congressional election. He has also been haunted by the memory of his girlfriend Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), who recently died in a car bombing -- and haunted not just figuratively but literally: he's seeing apparitions of Sarah everywhere, and he's starting to wonder if she's really there or if he's going mad. Waking the Dead is based on a novel by Scott Spencer, who also wrote Endless Love, and directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Keith Gordon. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly, (more)
Janet McTeer follows up her Oscar-nominated performance in Tumbleweeds (1999) with this period drama set during the 1910s. Dr. Lily Penleric (McTeer), an uptight musicologist, is furious after getting denied tenure again at an elite all-male East Coast university. She promptly quits out of protest, and having nowhere else to go, she joins her sister in a remote mountain school. Her high-minded, refined ways quickly clash with the locals, yet her academic interests are peaked when she realizes that this bucolic mountain culture is thoroughly infused with music that harkens back to traditional English and Scottish folk ballads. After retrieving some tools, including a primitive recording device, from the East Coast, she sets out collecting songs. The locals react with a mixture of amusement, bafflement, and suspicion. Meanwhile, a mining company is strong-arming the impoverished residences into selling their coal-rich land for a pittance. Lily soon realizes that the culture she's seeking to preserve is quickly being torn asunder. Aidan Quinn and David Patrick Kelly also appear in this film, which was screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Janet McTeer, Aidan Quinn, (more)
Gavin O'Connor directed, co-wrote and plays a major supporting role in this drama about a mother and daughter coming to terms with each other's problems. In Tumbleweeds, Janet McTeer plays Mary Jo Walker, a single mother with a long string of bad marriages and a habit of hitting the road when things start to turn sour. Her 12-year-old daughter Ava (Kimberly J. Brown) has learned to live with her Mom's nomadic ways and comfortably slips into the pattern of each new town. At the film's outset, Mary Jo and Ava depart Missouri for San Diego, California, with Mary Jo falling for a rough-hewn trucker named Jack (Gavin O'Connor) along the way. Once in San Diego, Mary Jo's relationship with Jack fails to run smoothly and her new job presents more than its share of challenges, while Ava has romantic problems of her own when she gains her first boyfriend. McTeer, an established stage actress in England, made her American screen debut in this film, which also features notable character actor Michael J. Pollard as Mary Jo's eccentric boss. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Janet McTeer, Kimberly J. Brown, (more)
At the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, American independent director Todd Haynes (Safe) received the "Artistic Achievement" award for this re-creation of the UK glam rock scene of the early '70s. Glam rock star Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who does a character named Maxwell Demon, predicts his own death onstage. As per his prediction, this happens, but when the killing is exposed as a hoax, it marks the end of Slade's stardom. A decade later, in 1984, Brit reporter and former Slade fan Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale), who witnesses the hoax murder, gets the assignment to do a "Whatever Happened To..?" article, and the film's plot suddenly goes into a prismatic Citizen Kane mode, reflecting various angles on Slade's life and career. Arthur visits the wheelchair-bound Cecil (Michael Feast), who discovered Slade, and then tracks Slade through his early life and his initial encounter with outrageous, maniacal American singer Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor). Slade's rise begins as manager Jerry Divine (Brit comedian Eddie Izzard) moves in to take over the performer's career. Ex-wife Mandy Slade (Toni Collette), interviewed by Arthur in a dimly lit nightclub, has memories going back to their initial 1969 Sombrero Club encounter. Their marriage paralleled his Bowie-like ascent to fame as an innovative, bisexual rock star pushing the limits. Idolized by teens, Slade teamed up for a while with the drug-addicted Wild. Eventually, the marriage of Mandy and Slade comes to an end, and she hasn't seen him in seven years when she's interviewed by Arthur. The soundtrack features vintage music by Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed and Brian Eno, plus new tunes. Some background on the making of Velvet Goldmine is documented in producer Christine Vachon's book Shooting to Kill: How an Independent Producer Blasts Through the Barriers to Make Movies That Matter (Avon, 1998) by Vachon with Slate film critic David Edelstein. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ewan McGregor, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, (more)
- 1996
This arty British effort attempts to pay homage to distinguished and fanciful French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery via a sort of tone poem. Those familiar with the writer's work will get the most from this film as it does not contain any excerpts from the writer's work. The film, though not a documentary, does contain interviews from those who knew and loved Saint-Exupery. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
Carrington is the true story of the peculiar love affair between two nonconformists in Victorian England: painter Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) and author Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce). Dora is a young English artist who is part of the Bloomsbury Group, an assemblage of British writers, painters, and eccentrics that includes the likes of Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, when she meets Strachey. A confirmed homosexual before meeting Carrington, Strachey inquires who the "ravishing boy" is and discovers that it's a woman. Shocked to discover this, he finds himself captivated by her, and they begin an unusual 17-year love affair/friendship. Strachey (most famous for the groundbreaking book Eminent Victorians) and Dora eventually move in together and have a series of offbeat sexual experiences with other members of the group and sometimes even with the same man; at one juncture, Dora even marries another man. Yet their relationship endures until Strachey's death years later. Pryce was honored as Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
- Starring:
- Emma Thompson, Jonathan Pryce, (more)
Peter Kosminksy directed this faithful adaptation of the Emily Bronte classic. Ralph Fiennes has the role of Heathcliff, a wanderer adopted by the father of Cathy (Juliette Binoche), "a wild slip of a girl." Heathcliffe is looked down upon by his stepbrothers and becomes a servant. He is further crushed when Cathy, the love of his life, marries another man -- since to marry a servant would be the ultimate in humiliation for her. Heathcliffe disappears for a number a years but then returns, revenge and hatred for Cathy's family the only thing on his mind. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes, (more)
- 1991
- Add Catherine Cookson's The Black Velvet Gown to Queue Add Catherine Cookson's The Black Velvet Gown to top of Queue
Filmed for British television in 1991, Black Velvet Gown is a two-part adaptation of Catherine Cookson's novel. The story begins in 1834; Riah Millican (Janet McTeer), left penniless by her husband's death, is evicted from her home along with her children. She takes a job as housekeeper for Percival Miller (Bob Peck), the reclusive master of Gulmington Mansion. Soon Riah is ruling the roost, as it were, and is in a position to hire and fire servants on her own. Part Two involves the arrival of illiterate serving girl Biddy (Geraldine Somerville), and the ensuing consequences. Black Velvet Gown was telecast in the US in 1993 on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1991
Filmmaker John Boorman pulls an "8 1/2"-and a good one-in I Dreamt I Woke Up. In this rambling reflection on Boorman's life and career, the director appears as himself, while John Hurt shows up as his alter ego. Boorman's son Charley plays "The Green Man," a far-from-veiled reference to his starring appearance in his dad's The Emerald Forest. And Janet McTeer rounds out the cast as an "everywoman", essaying all sorts of hallucinatory roles. Short (1944) and bittersweet, I Dreamt I Woke Up was filmed in County Wicklow, Ireland; it was first shown in the US at the Telluride Film Festival, in tandem with Susan Seidelman's 26-minute comedy Dutch Master. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Boorman, John Hurt, (more)
- 1991
Marcel Proust, the toast of die-hard conoisseurs of difficult (but brilliant) literature everywhere, is famous for his unbelievably detailed memoirs, A la recherche des temps perdus. He was a sickly, reclusive man who lived very much under the thumb of his beloved but overbearing mother. It is reasonably clear that he was a (largely inactive) homosexual. In this film, set late in his life, Proust (Alan Bates) has emerged from his sickbed to hire a string quartet to play Frank's Quartet in D at his home for him. Afterwards, he invites the handsome viola player of the group (Paul Rhys) to return alone and visit him. Despite the apparently thin storyline, the clever script by Alan Bennett and Alan Bates' irresistibly witty mugging sustained the interest of many reviewers. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alan Bates, Janet McTeer, (more)
Adapted from the autobiographical novel by Nigel Nicolson, the four-part British miniseries Portrait of a Marriage was inspired by the marriage of convenience between Nicolson's parents, historian Harold Nicolson and novelist Vita Sackville-West (Janet McTeer). Although the elder Nicolson was homosexual, his wife Vita was not only forgiving, but also obliging when he strayed from home and hearth to pursue partners of his own gender. After all, Vita was herself embroiled in a torrid -- and ultimately tragic -- affair with one Violet Keppel (Cathryn Harrison). The winner of a BAFTA award for Best Costume Design (Dinah Collin), Portrait of a Marriage was telecast in Britain and New Zealand in 1990, and in the United States two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Janet McTeer, David Haig, (more)
- 1989
- R
Two terminal cancer patients break out of the hospital in a final attempt to enjoy their last days in this black comedy drama. Decker (Anthony Edwards) is an American ex-football player resigned to die. Bancroft (Timothy Dalton) is an attorney who is more optimistic and talks Decker into a journey to a Dutch whorehouse for a final fling. The unlikely duo steal an ambulance and head for Holland. They make a stop at the wedding of Bancroft's former flame -- who abandoned him with his terminal illness. Decker and Bancroft come across two women with car trouble, Maureen (Camille Coduri) and Hazel (Janet McTeer). Maureen and Decker immediately hit it off, but Bancroft considers the meeting an interruption of their quest. The women are unaware the two men are dying, and the men have no way of knowing Hazel is pregnant. They arrive at the bordello where they eventually learn each other's secrets. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Timothy Dalton, Anthony Edwards, (more)
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