Ann Scott Movies

After from escaping the clutches of his cruel master and making his way to a remote country railway station, a performing dog in Victorian England becomes a mascot for the local orphanage in this family friendly tale starring George Cole and Thomas Sangster. When the lonely but lovable pooch wanders on to a railway station on day, station porter Bob takes an immediate shine to the dog and names him Jim. Henry (Sangster) is a sad young boy from the local orphanage who longs for the train that will spirit him back to the long lost comforts of home. Though he never had anything to fight for in the past, Henry suddenly finds cause to stand up for himself and his fellow orphans when a malevolent businessman threatens to close the orphanage and steal their dog. To make matters worse, it seems that there's an assassin who's hatched a deadly plot to do away with the Queen. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Gillies MacKinnon directed this $5.6 million production with a screenplay by his brother, Billy MacKinnon. The film adapts the 1992 autobiographical novel by Esther Freud (Sigmund Freud's granddaughter) about hippie misadventures in North Africa in 1972, as described by a five-year-old girl. Disenchanted with the dreary conventions of English life, 25-year-old Julia (Kate Winslet) heads for Morocco with her children, six-year-old Lucy (Carrie Mullan) and precocious eight-year-old Bea (Bella Riza). Living at a low-rent Marrakesh hotel, the trio survives on the sale of hand-sewn dolls and a few checks from the girls' father, a London poet who also has a child by another woman. After the girls match their mother with gentle Moroccan acrobat and con man Bilal (Said Taghmaoui), sexual gears are set in motion, and he moves in, serving as a surrogate father. Julia's friend Eva (Sira Stampe) urges Julia to study in Algiers with a revered Sufi master at a school of "the annihilation of the ego," and in another sequence European dandy Santoni invites Julia and the girls to his villa. As finances dwindle, Julia's philosophy is "God will provide," although usually it's Bilal who provides. This film was shot October-November 1997 in Morocco, where Winslet caught a stomach bug. Back in London, she went directly into the hospital and thus missed Titanic's London premiere. The score blends North African music with British-American pop hits of the '60s. The film's title derives from a word game played by the girls. Shown at the 1998 Dinard Festival of British Cinema and the 1998 London Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

Empty-nest syndrome confronts some harried parents in this BBC made-for-television movie. When two sets of parents go off to Cambridge for college enrollment interviews for their children, the realization that the kids are grown up and moving on finally hits home. The film has some touching moments with its somewhat familiar theme. It was followed by a sequel the following year, Cold Enough For Snow. ~ Bernadette McCallion, Rovi

Previously filmed in 1935 with Ann Harding, Enchanted April, a romantic novel by Elizabeth, was remade in 1992. The first film skips along superficially at 66 minutes: the second, directed by the always intriguing Mike Newell, runs 101 minutes, allowing for richer characterizations and a bottomless reserve of brilliant dialogue. Two cloistered, married English women (Josie Lawrence, Miranda Richardson) impulsively rent an Italian villa and embark upon a vacation without their spouses. They are joined by two other ladies: the high-flown aging widow Joan Plowright, and elegant upper-crust beauty Polly Walker) whom they've never met. Under the spell of an exotic new location, the foursome are in for quite a few life-altering experiences, many of them amusing, and not a few very surprising. Impeccably accurate in its recreation of European manners and mores in the 1920s, Enchanted April is sheer bliss from fade-in to fade-out. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Innocent Victim is a psychological thriller based on the Ruth Rendell novel Tree of Hands. London based, best-selling author, Benet (Helen Shaver), who has just written a controversial novel, lives alone with her young son. Benet's mother, Marsha (Lauren Becall), visiting from the United States, is a manic-depressive who has psychotic episodes. When Benet's young son dies, Marsha kidnaps a local child to serve as a substitute. Benet believes she should return the child but upon investigation she finds out that the child has been severely abused by his parents. After the child's disappearance, the parents are charged with the murder. A more skillful filmmaker might have dealt, as the novel does, with the moral issues of guilt and responsibility and the terrible moral dilemma faced by Benet. Instead, director Giles Foster presents the film in a rather straightforward, nonjudgmental fashion which allows for little character growth and diminishes the impact of what should be an ironic and disturbing ending. Innocent Victim, while at times compelling, and based on an interesting premise, would have been a memorable film if Foster had taken more chances and pushed his actors to give the performances that they are capable of but here are only hinted at. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Singleton (Ian Holm) is a determined British farmer with a gaggle of holiday geese ready for market. It should be a simple task for Singleton to get his honking cargo to town, but it isn't. For starters, his drivers have gone on strike, so Singleton must take the geese himself. The hundred-mile trek to market is fraught with peril and hilarity, and by the time Singleton is halfway there, he's become a national hero. A fond hark back to the Ealing Studios comedies of yore, Singleton's Pluck is a captivating paean to the unquenchability of the human spirit, expertly realized by Ian Holm. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A writer displays a troubling streak of opportunism in his personal and professional lives in this British drama. As the Falkland Islands war rages, journalist and aspiring historical writer James Penfield (Jonathan Pryce) is working on a book that will examine the 1965 Suez crisis in a manner compatible with the current political climate. James is also pursuing Susan Barrington (Charlie Dore), a documentary filmmaker whose mother Ann (Rosemary Harris) is a noted expert on the Suez crisis and an outspoken leftist. While James has assured his publisher that his book will take a conservative view, he tells Susan and Ann that he's a socialist and that his book will reflect that position as he attempts to glean information from them. James also sleeps with Ann as his relationship with Susan hits a rough patch, but he isn't especially forgiving when he discovers that Susan has had a fling with Jeremy Hancock (Tim Curry), a tabloid journalist who has worked with both of them. The Ploughman's Lunch includes a sequence where the characters attend the 1982 Conservative Party conference, which was shot at the actual event (and includes a speech Margaret Thatcher delivered to the assembled Tories). ~ Mark Deming, Rovi