George Faber Movies

This seriocomic British TV series stars Warren Clarke and Anthony Head as Maurice Riley and Syd Woolsey, a pair of professional burglars who have always managed to evade capture or detection, thereby earning the soubriquet "The Invisibles." Hoping to spend their declining days as peaceful pensioners in a Devon fishing village, Maurice and Syd's dreams of retirement when they run out of the money they've pilfered over the years. Now forced to return to the "old life", our heroes find that they are woefully out of touch with modern criminal methods, obliging them to team up with Hedley Huthwaite (Dean Lennox Kelly), the larcenous but none-too-ambitious son of their former partner in crime. Meanwhile, Maurice must deal with his wife Barbara (Jenny Agutter), who wants him to pack it in and lead an honest life, and with his daughter Grace (played by Anthony Head's real-life daughter Emily Head), whom he has carefully shielded from his perfidious activities and who is completely in the dark as to what her dear old dad has been doing for a living. As for the much-married Syd, he must learn how to get along without women complicating his "second career". Created by William Ivory, The Invisibles (working title: Desperadoes) initially ran for six hour-long episodes on BBC1 from May 1 to June 5, 2008. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another Americanization of a popular British TV series, Life is Wild was inspired by the BBC comedy-drama Wild at Heart. D.W. Moffett headed the cast as New York-based veterinarian Danny Clarke, who on little more than a whim relocated himself, his second wife Jo (Stephanie Niznik) and their four children (two from his first marriage, two from hers) to a new home in South Africa. The Clarke family reconnoitered at the Blue Antelope, a game preserve and safari lodge run by Danny's crusty father-in-law Art (David Butler) (his daughter was Danny's late first wife). Though the kids thought that Danny was crazy, wife Jo did her best to be supportive, using her skills as a lawyer to help rebuild the Blue Antelope into a thriving concern, despite stiff competition from a newer, more tourist-friendly lodge owned by Art's rival Colin Banks (Jeremy Sheffield). The rest of the characters included Danny's level-headed daughter Katie (Leah Pipes) and his frisky son Chase (K'sun Ray; Jo's rebellious son Jesse (Andrew St. John) and sports-nut daughter Mia (Mary Matilyn); Colin Banks' twin children, handsome-hunk son Oliver (Jeremy Sheffield) and drop-dead-gorgeous daughter Emily (Tiffany Mulheron); Tumelo (Atandwa Kani), a local teenager who aspired to become a veterinarian himself; and singer-bartender Mbali (Precious Kofi), for whose attentions Jesse and Tumelo carried on a friendly competition. Filmed on location in South Africa, Life is Wild debuted October 7, 2007 on CW, in the Sunday-night timeslot formerly occupied by Seventh Heaven. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director David Moore collaborates with screenwriter Sarah Williams to explore the forbidden love that ultimately drove King Edward VIII to become the only British monarch ever to voluntarily step down from the throne. It was at a fashionable party in 1931 that Edward, Prince of Wales first met outspoken American Wallis Simpson. Though married at the time of their initial meeting, Simpson and her husband would subsequently accompany Edward to numerous parties and social gatherings. Aware of Edward's increasing infatuation with his unquestioningly faithful wife but unwilling to give up the perks that come with being in the royal inner circle, Simpson's husband willingly went along with the ruse before eventually abandoning the marriage to be with another woman. Much to the consternation of the royal family - who viewed a twice-divorced American as an improper match for the future king - Edward and Simpson would subsequently enter into a romance that was still going strong when Edward's father died in 1936. Now faced with the prospect of abandoning the woman he loves for the sake of fulfilling his royal birthright, Edward's refusal to end his relationship with Simpson was seen as a baffling and infuriating weakness driven by selfishness and recklessness by the rest of his family. Later, as Simpson is demonized by the press, the royal family, and the public at large, she offers to leave the country quietly so that Edward can assume his rightful position on the throne. But her offer had fallen on deaf ears, and on December 10, 1936 Edward renounced the throne for both himself and his descendents in order to follow his heart and be with the woman he truly loved. As a result of his decision, not one member of the royal family would attend the wedding of the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

In the week leading up to the one night of the year when chaos and trickery run rampant in the streets, two racially-divided, working-class Yorkshire communities become locked into a semi-comic collision course of cultural misunderstandings in the third and final installment of director Penny Woolcock's "Tina" trilogy. Tina (Kelli Hollis) is a single mother living in a predominately Caucasian Leeds housing project with her teenage son Tyler (Michael Taylor), twelve-year old daughter Kimberly (Holly Kenny), and young son Macauley (Jake Hayward). Kimberly has always been led to believe that her father was dead, and when she finds out that he is in fact still living she storms across the park to a neighborhood primarily populated by Muslim Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. It's there that Kimberly makes the acquaintance of Asif (Qasim Akhtar), the rebellious younger brother of her mother's one-time love interest Immie (Ramon Tikaram) - who has recently emerged from an extended stint in prison. As Mischief Night draws near and both families are forced out of their neatly divided neighborhoods, Tina's drug-dealing father Don (Gwyne Hollis) will lovingly show grandson Tyler the tricks of the trade while Don's subordinate Quassim (Christopher Simpson) schools Asif to the ins-and-outs of pushing heroin. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The often-troubled life of one of the greatest comic actors in the history of the British cinema provides the basis for this biopic. Peter Sellers (Geoffrey Rush) was raised by a domineering mother (Miriam Margolyes) and meek father (Peter Vaughan), and at an early age discovered he liked to hide behind the emotional curtain of playing a character. In time, Sellers put this skill to use as an actor, and discovered he had a great gift for comedy. In the late '50s, Sellers rose to fame on the wildly popular radio series The Goon Show alongside Spike Milligan (Edward Tudor Pole) and Harry Secombe (Steve Pemberton), but as his success on radio gave way to stardom on the big screen, Sellers' ego began to get the better of him. While working on a film with Sophia Loren (Sonia Aquino), Sellers fell in love with the great Italian beauty, and eventually left his wife Anne (Emily Watson) to pursue her; when it became clear that Loren wanted nothing to do with him, Sellers fell into an affair with her stand-in instead. Professionally, Sellers career hits a new high when he agrees to take a role in a picture being directed by American filmmaker Blake Edwards (John Lithgow) called The Pink Panther, and personally he finds a new love with the beautiful Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron). But Sellers' mood swings eventually put paid to their marriage, and while he finds commercial success as a funnyman onscreen, he achieves little in the way of happiness or respect. Produced for the American premium cable service HBO, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers was screened in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Originally telecast in the United Kingdom, the two-part miniseries White Teeth was based on Zadie Smith's 2000 bestseller about the perils of cultural assimilation in modern day North London. Taking place in the years 1974 to 1992 and set in the melting-pot community of Willesden Green, the story focuses on three different families. The Jamaican-English Archie Jones (Phil Davis) is a professional envelope-folder, while his wife, Clara (Naomie Harris), is a lapsed Jehovah's Witness. Archie's old army buddy Samad Iqbal (Om Puri) is a Bengalese waiter who hails from Bangladesh, also the home country of his sharp-tongued spouse, Alsana (Archie Panjabi). And the Malfen family, headed by Joyce and Marcus (Geraldine James, Robert Bathurst), are fiercely dedicated charter members of the Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (or KEVIN for short). Deftly combining comedy, drama, melodrama, and pathos, the Dickensian interactions and interrelationships among the three families manage to accommodate a variety of dizzying plot convolutions involving disenchanted youngsters, racial prejudice, social pretensions, cult worship, misguided animal activists, a genetically modified mouse, a Nazi war criminal, and a bizarre but brilliant kidnapping scheme. In the United States, White Teeth first aired May 11, 2003, as part of the PBS Masterpiece Theatre anthology. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In 1978, America's PBS made the wise decision of running the ten-part 1977 British adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's tragic novel Anna Karenina. Twenty-two years later, the Boston-based public TV station WGBH entered into another felicitous partnership with the BBC, and the result was a shorter (four-part), but no less vivid adaptation of the oft-filmed Tolstoy work. Naturally, the main emphasis was on the triangular relationship between the titular Anna (Helen McCrory), her influential older husband, Karenin (Stephen Dillane), and the handsome, but faithless Count Vronsky (Kevin McKidd), culminating in disgrace, ostracization, and finally death for the hapless heroine. This time, however, scriptwriter (Allan Cubitt) also gave plenty of air space to the fascinating subplots involving the characters of Levin (Douglas Henshall), Kitty (Paloma Baeza), Oblonsky (Mark Strong), and Dolly (Amanda Root). Filmed largely on-location in Poland (with several prominent Polish actors in the supporting cast), Anna Karenina made its British television bow on May 9, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Britain's "answer" to such American legal-eagle series as L.A. Law and The Practice, North Square was set in Leeds. The stories revolved a round a group of savvy lawyers, young and old, who encountered just as much excitement off the job as they did in court. Created by Peter Moffat, the series was distinguished by its clever dialogue and logical plot lines; as a bonus, Jon Costelloe won the series a BAFTA award for his razor-sharp editing. Unfortunately, the series never built up a very large viewership; thus, ten weeks after its Channel 4 debut on October 18, 2000, North Square was no more. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

In a small city in the English midlands, a Pakistani immigrant named Parvez (Om Puri) works long hours driving a cab to provide modest comfort for his disapproving wife, Minoo (Gopi Desai), and better opportunities for his collegiate son, Farid (Akbar Kurtha). When Farid breaks off his engagement with the daughter of the city's white police commissioner, drops out of university and joins a cell of Islamic fundamentalists, Parvez must bide his time and hope that his son will come around to his own liberal, assimilationist views. Meanwhile, a monied German entrepreneur named Schitz (Stellan Skarsgard) arrives in town on business and retains Parvez's services as not only driver but navigator of the city's steamy underbelly. Parvez recommends the services of Bettina (Rachel Griffiths), a local hooker with whom he has struck up an unlikely but warm friendship. Schitz's callous treatment of both of his new employees soon, however, sickens Parvez. After his son convinces Parvez to let a visiting holy man move into the family home, the conflicts between Parvez's nocturnal activities and his home life escalate. The screenplay was adapted by Hanif Kureishi from his own short story, which appears in the collection Love in a Blue Time. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Jez Butterworth directed this adaptation of his own play about the 1958 rock scene in London's Soho. Silver Johnny (Hans Matheson) performs at the Atlantic Club where he catches the eye of big-shot Sam Ross (Harold Pinter). Ross invites Johnny and Johnny's manager Ezra (Ricky Tomlinson) for a meeting to discuss Johnny's jump to a bigger plateau. Skinny (Ewan Bremner), a member of Johnny's group, discovers Ezra sawed in half, and Ezra's associate Mickey (Ian Hart) announces that Ross intends to take over the Atlantic Club, setting the stage for major power struggles. Shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This British made-for-television movie tells the story of marital and familial abuse. Kevin Whately and Stella Gonet star, respectively, as Ian and Kate Armstrong. The Armstrong's have two children and from all accounts appear to be living a normal, country life. The family's security is destroyed though when Ian uncharacteristically and unexpectedly turns abusive. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide