A Bit of Light – Raindance Film Festival 2022

Writer: Rebecca Callard

Director: Stephen Moyer  

Originally written for the stage by Rebecca Callard A Bit of Light moves to the screen but has yet to shake off its theatrical origins.

Recovering alcoholic Ella (Anna Paquin) struggles with sobriety mainly due to extremely low self-esteem. Her alcoholism alienated her daughters, so she now must negotiate visiting rights with her former partner Joseph (Youssef Kerkour) while feeling the children are unlikely to ever regard her as their mother again. Ella reluctantly lives with her father Alan (Ray Winstone) himself a former alcoholic who is frustrated by his inability to help his daughter and horrified to realise she is not entirely trustworthy.

Ella spends an unhealthy amount of time in the local playground where she encounters Neil (Luca Hogan) an unusually perceptive fourteen-year-old who does not share Ella’s low opinion of herself and is willing to speak up on her behalf. While Neil prompts Ella to reconsider her viewpoint the relationship between them is uncomfortable for other people who wonder about Neil’s parents and his uncanny ability to pop up uninvited.

Director Stephen Moyer takes full advantage of the cinema techniques which are not available to theatrical productions. The consequences of Ella’s alcoholism for other people, rather than just herself, are made clear with flashbacks of an intoxicated Ella terrifying her own children. It is rare for conversations in the film to take place indoors as the camera roams around playgrounds, seaside resorts and meeting rooms.

Yet the one area which remains stubbornly theatrical is the character of Neil. On-stage the character would be accepted as a dramatic device – a means of articulating and ultimately resolving Ella’s guilt and self-recrimination. In the more realistic setting of a film, however, the character stands out like sore thumb. Neil being permanently under-dressed but never cold, blasé about his parents and aware of a fire which took place on the playground suggests a supernatural creature perhaps a ghost, but this is never confirmed. As a result, Neil remains a larger-than-life character, existing to cause discomfort for those who criticise Ella and capable of astonishing insights including deducing Ella believes she is responsible for her mother’s death. Luca Hogan’s performance, polite, permanently cheerful, and wise beyond his years is highly disconcerting.

While Alan’s alcoholism has left him with trembling hands Ella is one of those cinematic alcoholics whose condition leaves no lasting physical effects. Her depression is reflected in a series of unflattering clothes in dark shades- Ella’s adopting brighter clothing in the closing scene becomes an indication her mood is improving.

Ray Winstone plays Alan as someone well and truly out of his depth, clumsily trying to check if his daughter is attending AA meetings. In a sequence where Ella’s deceit becomes apparent, he looks like he has been hit by a brick.

Rebecca Callard’s script builds convincing characters. The closest to a villain is the hypersensitive Bethan (Pippa Bennett-Warner) Joseph’s partner and so the new mother of Ella’s children. But even she is allowed unexpected depth acknowledging that she never wanted children but accepts the responsibility.

Although Ella claims to be grieving for the life she threw away she is enigmatic- there are no details of whether she had a career, so she is defined by her compulsions and illness.  Anna Paquin brings a driven quality to the role- Ella is in constant furious motion even when sitting at the children’s playground she is restless and unsettled. Ella living in her parental home is reduced to a childish state – her bedroom still furnished for a child.

The mixture of the authentic and the artificial makes for an uneven film but one with fine performances.

A Bit of Light is screening at the Raindance Film Festival 2022.