Andrew Birkin Movies
From his days as a production assistant on 2001: A Space Odyssey to his later work as a successful screenwriter and director, Andrew Birkin has defined his cinematic career with an uncanny eye for detail, both written and filmed. Birkin's penchant for deeply disturbed characters is evident in virtually every production with which he is involved; he has proven himself a master of slow-burning inner torment with such features as Burning Secret (1988) and The Cement Garden (1993). Born in London in 1945, Birkin entered the film industry in the early '70s. After making an impression on audiences by penning such features as The Pied Piper (1972) and Flame (1975), Birkin cemented his status as a gifted writer by putting ink to paper for the acclaimed British miniseries The Lost Boys, which detailed the life of author J.M. Barrie and the origins of his timeless children's fable Peter Pan. In 1981, Birkin frightened audiences with the horror sequel Omen III: The Final Conflict, and it wasn't long before he was looking to expand his responsibilities behind the camera. Though Birkin would make his directorial debut with the 1981 short Sredni Vashtar, it wasn't until his feature debut with 1988's Burning Secret that audiences were treated to his true vision as a filmmaker. A searing and remarkably personal drama documenting a young boy's growth into manhood, the film successfully put Birkin's name on the map by taking home awards from both the Bavarian Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival.In the years that followed, Birkin frequently alternated between writing and directing, with the occasional acting job thrown in for good measure. His screenplays for Bruce Beresford's King David and Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose (1986) found his reputation continuing to flourish, and his screenplay for the following year's Kung Fu Master (with his sister Jane in the lead role) explored the fragility of an age-disparity romance on tentative and sensitive terms. In 1992, Birkin once again stepped behind the camera for the romantic drama Salt on Our Skin, and his subsequent film, The Cement Garden (1993), took home the Silver Berlin Bear at that year's Berlin International Film Festival. Although Birkin remained fairly inactive throughout the 1990s, he worked closely with French filmmaker Luc Besson late in the decade on the script for the historical war drama The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999). ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 1988
- PG
Set in the years just after World War I at an upper-class winter spa, this period drama concerns the sickly son, Edmund (David Eberts), of American diplomat Mr. Tuchman (Ian Richardson). Edmund is accompanied to the spa with his ice-boned mother Sonya (Faye Dunaway) to recuperate from an asthmatic condition. At the spa, Edmund meets a dashing baron (Klaus Maria Brandauer), who regales Edmund with tales of his wartime exploits and takes him on long trips in his car and into the woods to explore a decaying tower. The Baron suffers from a hidden depression. Sonya, too, suffers from a depression exacerbated by years of a passionless marriage. Inevitably, these two manic souls find each other and have an affair. But now Edmund becomes jealous, and even his well-placed asthma attacks can't break Sonya and The Baron apart. So Edmund, his innocent boyhood shattered forever, takes off to Vienna to expose the affair to his father. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Faye Dunaway, Klaus Maria Brandauer, (more)
- 1993
- R
Greta Scacchi plays a famous feminist activist, while Vincent D'Onofrio portrays a humble Scots fisherman in this film from director Andrew Birkin. Despite the obvious ideological chasm between them, the two fall in love. The couple spend the rest of the film running away from commitment, only to be reunited at every turn. Salt on Our Skin is also known under the title Desire. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Greta Scacchi, Vincent D'Onofrio, (more)
British glam rock superstars Slade made their collective acting debut in this downbeat drama about a pop group's struggles with success. In the late '60s, Barry (Dave Hill), Paul (Jim Lea), and Charlie (Don Powell) are musicians who are barely making a living playing pub dates, weddings, and socials backing up egocentric vocalist Jack Daniels (Alan Lake). One night, the boys find themselves opening for a ghoulish show band called The Undertakers, and a prank played on their lead vocalist, Stoker (Noddy Holder), backfires and leads to a car chase which lands both groups in jail for the night. After a long night of thinking, Barry, Paul, and Charlie decide that they have no future with Daniels, and bring new pal Stoker aboard as their singer. Calling themselves Iron Rod, the new quartet clicks musically, but manager Ron Harding (Johnny Shannon) doesn't care for their new style and stops booking the group. Robert Seymour (Tom Conti), a marketing man from a wealthy family who thinks there's quick money in pop music, enters the picture and informs the band that he can make them major stars. Wary of Seymour but eager for success, the group signs a new management deal, and after Seymour changes their name to Flame and gives them an image makeover, the band scores a hit record and is soon playing a series of sold-out shows. But as fame beckons, tensions rise between the musicians and is not at all helped when Harding reenters the picture. Slade members Jim Lea and Noddy Holder wrote a set of original songs for the film, two of which ("Far Far Away" and "How Does It Feel") became hit singles in the U.K. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Noddy Holder, Dave Hill, (more)
Director Bruce Beresford has safely stayed within the domain of the Bible and not strayed into patches of Hollywood fiction in this routine version of the story of David (Richard Gere). For that reason, anyone unfamiliar with Biblical history might be puzzled by the episodic presentation of David's life. In the opening scenes, Samuel condemns Saul and anoints the young David as his heir, and in fairly quick succession David slays Goliath, incurs Saul's jealous wrath, leaves, and, much later, comes back to rule after Saul has died. Once David is on the throne, Bathsheba and then Absalom enter into the picture. Interspersed are brutal scenes of fighting, but not much in the way of motivation for David's complex behavior. Gaps in the narration or unclear motivation may be the result of trying to cover too many events in a 114-minute running time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Richard Gere, Edward Woodward, (more)
- 1984
In this avant-garde drama, five main protagonists talk incessantly and occasionally scream at each other, while making it clear that verbal fights are going to lead to mayhem since they carry knives and guns to back up their angry outbursts. At the core of this emotional whirlpool are Carol (Maruschka Detmers) and Alma (Jane Birkin) whose relationship is under stress because of the others, especially Carol's husband (Andrew Birkin). By the time the dust settles along with old scores, the audience may feel too alienated to care. Laure Marsac received a 1984 Cesar award for Most Promising Young Actress for her unnamed, secondary role as a young girl in this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jane Birkin, Philippe Léotard, (more)
- 1971
An excellent musical score by the Bee Gees adds appeal to this curious little movie about two ten-year olds, Daniel and Melody (Mark Lester and Tracy Hyde) who are completely taken with each other and announce to their parents, in all seriousness, that they plan to get married. This marriage is not planned for the distant future, but as soon as possible. The uproar that is caused when their seriousness becomes clear is not too surprising. Their best friend Ornshaw (Jack Wild) is not too thrilled with their plan either. What makes the film work is that the entire story is told from the children's point of view in which the grownups' objections, since they have no relation to the truth of what the children are feeling, come across as silly or inconsequential. This film is a reunion of sorts for Oscar-winning Oliver! co-stars Mark Lester and Jack Wild ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jack Wild, Mark Lester, (more)
- 2006
- R
- Add Perfume: The Story of a Murderer to Queue Add Perfume: The Story of a Murderer to top of Queue
An obsessive French perfumer with a highly developed olfactory sense and an all-consuming drive to capture the essence of love eventually resorts to murder in his unrepentant quest to find the key ingredient for his recipe in director Tom Tykwer's adaptation of author Patrick Suskind's best-selling 1985 novel. Born in a fetid fish market and raised in a dilapidated orphanage, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) toiled his childhood away in a rank tannery run by the thuggish Grimal (Sam Douglas). Subsequently obsessed by smell, Grenouille's keen olfactory sense becomes so finely tuned that it eventually overpowers such human qualities as love and compassion. Though he has indeed discovered the unmistakable scent of a woman, Grenouille finds it impossible to connect with the fairer sex on any sort of meaningful level. Roaming the streets of Paris late one night, Grenouille catches the scent of a young girl selling plums and impulsively strangles her, later sniffing her nude corpse in a twisted attempt to preserve the distinctive scent in his memory. After persuading legendary perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) to take him on as an apprentice, Grenouille travels to the town of Grasse in Southern France in order to learn the art of enfleurage at a firm run by the highly respected Mme. Arnulfi (Corinna Harfouch). It is there that Grenouille becomes dangerously drawn to the vestal aroma of the young and beautiful Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood), the daughter of widower merchant Antione Richis (Alan Rickman). Soon driven to madness by such a pure scent, the spellbound Grenouille continues to claim the lives of the numerous young girls in a tragic attempt to bottle the impossibly elusive smell of virginal womanhood. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ben Whishaw, Alan Rickman, (more)
Jonathan Fisher (Christopher Reeve) is a newspaper reporter who becomes a celebrity when he writes a fictitious exposé on prostitution. The story of the high-living pimp is too close a resemblance to real-life flesh pedlar Fast Black (Morgan Freeman), and Jonathan is jailed when he refuses to turn his papers over to the local district attorney. In jail for suspicion of murder, Black tries to silence the reporter who created the sensational fabrication. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christopher Reeve, Morgan Freeman, (more)
- 1993
- NR
- Add The Cement Garden to Queue
Ian McEwan's disturbing novel is given a chilly shimmer in this film adaptation by Andrew Birkin. The film takes place in a concrete slab of a house situated on the outskirts of an English town. The father (Hanns Zischer) is a consumptive creep, while the mother (Sinead Cusack) is a sweet and understanding matriarch. When the father dies of a heart attack after his garden is paved over, it is too much for the mother to bear, and after a few weeks she wastes away and also dies. This leaves the children to fend for themselves. The eldest sister and brother, Julie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Jack (Andrew Robertson), have to care for the younger children, Sue (Alice Coultard) and Tom (Ned Birkin). Without parental supervision, the four children give themselves up to their secret longings. Jack hides in corners to masturbate, but Julie uses her sexual attraction to lure Jack into an incestuous relationship. Even the younger children have their problems: Sue is mostly mute and spends all her time obsessively writing in her journal, while Tom feels that deep inside himself he is a girl trapped in a boy's body. The children hide the mother's remains in the basement and live off her bank account. The neighbors don't suspect a thing --that is until sleazy Derek (Jochen Horst) begins to come around in his red convertible, trying to get a date with Julie. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
- Starring:
- Andrew N. Robertson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, (more)
The second sequel to the 1976 horror hit The Omen finds Damien Thorn assuming the full mantle of the Antichrist and preparing for a final, all-out battle with "the Nazarene." Now in his thirties, Damien (Sam Neill) has elevated the family business, Thorn Industries, into the world's biggest multinational corporation. A little bit of black magic paves the way for Damien to become ambassador to England and the head of an international youth council. He soon uses this platform to amass an army of followers to do his bidding. But when Damien notices the confluence of three stars in the sky on March 24, he gets worried about the second coming of Christ. So he orders his minions to kill all the babies born on that day, warning them: "Fail, and you will be condemned to a numbing eternity in the flaccid bosom of Christ." Damien even orders his faithful private secretary, Harvey Dean (Don Gordon), to commit infanticide on his own kid, just because the guy's wife gave birth on the wrong day; a nasty incident involving laundry-room implements soon follows. Meanwhile, Damien romances Kate Reynolds (Lisa Harrow), a beautiful television anchorwoman who feels like a moth drawn to Damien's charismatic flame -- even after he brutally sodomizes her to show her how the world looks through his eyes. Things come to a head when Brother DeCarlo (Rossano Brazzi), one of a secret cabal of monks who have assembled the seven Daggers of Meggido in hopes of assassinating Damien, reveals to Kate that the Antichrist has taken her son (Barnaby Holm) under his wing. Although The Final Conflict was the final theatrical installment of the Omen series, the made-for-TV Omen IV: The Awakening appeared a decade later. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, (more)
Ian Holm starred in this three-part British miniseries as James M. Barrie, the author of such whimsical works as The Admirable Crichton, A Kiss for Cinderella, and, of course, Peter Pan. The dramatic focus in this series was on the latter work, which according to screenwriter Andrew Birkin, drew its inspiration from the friendship between Barrie and the Llewellyn-Davies family. As fond as he was of "progressive" parents Arthur and Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies (Tim Piggott-Smith and Anna Cropper), Barrie was enchanted by the couple's sons: George, Jack, Peter, Michael, and Nico (played by different actors at various stages of the kids' lives). It was George in fact who described death as "an awfully big adventure," a line which Barrie would ultimately immortalize in his novel and play about Peter Pan, the little boy who never grew up. Upon the deaths of both Arthur and Sylvia from cancer, Barrie became the legal guardian of the Llewelyn-Davies boys, a responsibility that yielded equal shares of happiness and heartbreak. The Lost Boys originally aired over the BBC in 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ian Holm, Tim Pigott-Smith, (more)
- 1999
- R
- Add The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc to Queue Add The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc to top of Queue
In the 15th century, France is mired in the 100 Years War when a humble voice appears, claiming to have been instructed by the Lord to lead the French army into battle and defend their land against the British. The voice belongs to Jeanne d'Aragon, a teenage girl from a tiny village, and, to the surprise of many, her story does not fall on deaf ears. Wearing the armor of a soldier, the girl known as Joan of Arc leads the French troops in what she believes is a holy battle. Joan would soon be tried for heresy for her actions, but history would vindicate her with sainthood. The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc stars Milla Jovovich as Joan of Arc, Faye Dunaway as Yolande d'Aragon, and Dustin Hoffman as The Grand Inquisitor. Directed by Luc Besson, The Messenger was originally titled Joan of Arc but added the prefix to avoid confusion with the 1999 TV movie of the same name, which starred Leelee Sobieski. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Milla Jovovich, John Malkovich, (more)
Adapted from Umberto Eco's best-selling novel, director Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a 14th century murder-mystery thriller starring Sean Connery as a Sherlock Holmes-esque Franciscan monk called William of Baskerville. When a murder occurs at a secluded Benedictine Abbey, William is called in to investigate. As he and his apprentice, Adson von Melk (Christian Slater), delve deeper and deeper into the case, more dead bodies begin to turn up. Eventually, Bernardo Gui, an inquisitor played by F. Murray Abraham gets involved, but he may not have the best intentions. Sean Connery's performance earned him the award for Best Actor at the 1988 British Academy Awards. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, (more)
The Pied Piper eschews the romanticism of Robert Browning's poem and returns to the grim Grimm Brothers source. Pop singer Donovan plays the 14th century piper hired by a duplicitous burgomaster (Donald Pleasence) to rid the town of Hamelin of its rats. The piper does what he's asked, but is denied the payment promised him; in revenge, he leads all of Hamelin's children out of town, never to be seen again. Though the story is a familiar one, this 1972 Pied Piper is not a kiddie movie. Director Jacques Demy's depiction of the 14th century as a muddy, backward, superstitious, disease-ridden, vermin-infested era transforms this fable into a squalid tale of revenge (incidentally, all those repulsive rodents are real). Donovan is matched by a remarkably restrained Jack Wild as the crippled boy, and John Hurt also co-stars. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jack Wild, Donald Pleasence, (more)
- 1978
This made-for-TV fantasy is a tale from the well-known Arabian Nights fable featuring a flying carpet, a prince, a pretty maiden, and a genie. Roddy McDowall, Ian Holm and Peter Ustinov appear in this Middle Eastern adventure. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi
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