I CAPTURE THE CASTLE

UK, 2003, 113 minutes, Colour.
Bill Nighy, Romola Garia, Rose Byrne, Henry Thomas, Mark Blucas, Tara Fitzgerald, Henry Cavill, James Faulkner.
Directed by Tim Fywell.

Dodie Smith was famous for having written One Hundred and One Dalmatians. However, she wrote I Capture the Castle in the 1940s, a memoir of coming of age in the 1930s in country England. It takes the form of a diary of a seventeen year old younger sister who records the difficulties of living with the writer-father and his writer's block, of their being impoverished and of the plans for her sister, Rose, to marry well and save the family. She also records her emotional journey and her falling in love.

Bill Nighy is very good as the depressed father with his one-off success, his dreams of being creative but his moroseness and his violent outbursts. Romola Garai is able to communicate to us the details of daily life as well as the big sweep of events which overtake the family when the American lord of the manor arrives and is smitten by Rose. Henry Thomas is the lord and Rose Byrne is Rose.

After scenes of poverty where the family live in the ruins of a property, we are transported to a world of wealthy society, of fashion and the arts and the fulfilment of romantic girls' dreams. In the meantime, there are many emotional crises as arranged love versus true love with quite an amount of self-sacrifice. Re-creating its period with a great sense of detail, it might have been stronger with better performances from some of the younger cast.

1. A 1930 story? The reputation of the author, Dodie Smith? A memoir? An era of class distinctions, family, relationships? UK aspects? American aspects?

2. The title, the literal castle? Symbolic meaning?

3. The locations of the period, costumes and decor, castle, interiors, the status of castles?

4. A family story? Going back into the past, the father, author, his relationship with his wife, her death, his daughters? His successful novel? One-off? His changing?

5. The focus on the girls, the younger brother? The introduction to each? Their growing up?

6. Their father, marrying again? Topaz, the change in him, yet producing a novel, buying the castle, coping, its poor condition, the Americans and the lease?

7. Topaz, a personality, of the 30s, interest in arts, freedom, relationship with the girls, with her husband?

8. Cassandra focus, at age 17? Her character, relationship with her father, romantic aspects? A relationship with Rose? Her brother? The arrival of the Americans? Simon, Neil? Interactions – possibilities of love? Tensions? The place of Stephen Colley?

9. The Americans, Simon, his personality, Neil? Americans in England? The 1930s? Ownership, the lease? Simon and interactions with Rose? Love? With Cassandra?

10. Rose, her age, the place of the family? Pleasant? Living in the castle? Her attitude towards Simon, liking him, falling in love? The tensions?

11. Conflicts, English perspectives, American perspectives? The resolution?