Wreckers Press Notes

1 Artificial Eye Presents A Film by D.R.HOOD WRECKERS Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Claire Foy and Shaun Evans 2011 /United Kingdom / 86’/ English UK RELEASE DATE: 16th December For further information please contact: [email protected] / 02074389528 Artificial Eye Film Company, 20 - 22 Stukeley Street London WC2B 5LR An Artificial Eye Release 2 Short Synopsis WRECKERS is the beguiling debut film from D R Hood and features stand out performances from some of the best British acting talent working today including Benedict Cumberbatch (War Horse, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Atonement and BBC’s Sherlock Holmes), Claire Foy (Vivaldi, The Season of the Witch and the BBC’s Little Dorrit) and Shaun Evans (Being Julia, Boy A). A married couple (Cumberbatch, Foy) move back to his childhood village to start a family but a surprise visit from the husband's brother (Evans) ignites sibling rivalry and exposes the lies embedded in the couple's relationship. WRECKERS is an evocative, beautifully shot drama that examines the fragile relationship between truth, intimacy and betrayal. An Artificial Eye Release 3 D R HOOD – Directors Statement This story is my imaginative response to my village childhood. Everything goes on in villages but much is hidden. I am fascinated by how people hide things and lie to each other about the things that are most vital to them, even though they love each other. For shame or fear. I wonder how long people can live with lies. In films lies often emerge in a climactic scene but I wanted to see what would happen if they were kept hidden. Nick is the soldier who comes back but those at home are not innocent. Nick stirs in friends and family a deep, unspoken sense of guilt and shame. Dawn is a watcher but she is guilty too. Nick is the sacrifice and she lets it happen – it is the village that has a savage heart. We wanted a very wide landscape to shoot in, mixed with close, intimate, shots of our actors to give a feeling of Dawn’s isolation and her slowly growing sense of unease. We found the Fens a perfect place to evoke those contrasts. The location was a pull for the actors too – Claire Foy being drawn to the script by the claustrophobia and the landscape and Shaun Evans spending time in the Fens before shooting. We aim for a sense of sensuality and beauty in the film, and also to build the rhythms of every day life through repetitions of locations and framing and musical themes. Dawn is lulled and lured by these rhythms. At meetings with the visual team – DOP Annemarie Lean-Vercoe and designer Beck Rainford – we explored the minutiae of the house and the relationships, and built the visuals out from there. This grounding helped when we struck the rock of low budget scheduling! An Artificial Eye Release 4 Dawn doesn’t want to really ‘see’ what is going on between the brothers. Because she is our perspective on the film we found in the edit and in test screenings that we can also make our own story about them. There was a more closed ending possible to the film, but with Benedict playing David my editor Claire Pringle and I chose something more open because we believed both the plausibility and the ambiguity of David’s character, and that Dawn wants to love and stay with him. From the moment I met with her, Claire Foy was going to be Dawn because everything she is feeling flows through her face, as she watches and watches – before getting sucked in. For Nick, Shaun brought a particular vulnerability to the role, which I loved. Brothers, duality, fascinate me … I am pleased with the work we did with Shaun and Benedict in rehearsal to make them brothers – given their differing backgrounds, methods and temperaments – and the way that we worked to emphasise that relationship visually. An Artificial Eye Release 5 LONGER SYNOPSIS What lie will you live… Dawn (Foy) and David (Cumberbatch) have moved back to the village where he grew up to start a family. Their relationship seems idyllic, but getting pregnant is proving difficult and adding to the strain of building their perfect home. The couple receive a surprise visit from Nick (Evans), David’s brother. Nick is a soldier. He is troubled – but his trouble goes deeper than his experience at war. He pushes David back towards a savage childhood and exposes the lies embedded in Dawn and David’s relationship. Dawn begins to wonder how well she knows her husband. A moment of anger pulls Dawn in to the web of guilt. Now, like David, she has something to hide. With compelling performances by brilliant young British actors, Wreckers explores whether love can survive a lie at its heart. An Artificial Eye Release 6 CAST Claire Foy – Dawn Claire came straight out of drama school to play Dorritt in the BBC’s Little Dorritt and then starred opposite Nicholas Cage in Season of the Witch. Most recently she has starred in Channel 4 miniseries The Promise, directed by Peter Kosminsky, followed by Nightwatch and the upcoming White Heat for the BBC. Benedict Cumberbatch - David Benedict’s prolific career includes Atonement, The Other Boleyn Girl, and most recently Sherlock in the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes with Martin Freeman, and roles in Spielberg’s upcoming Warhorse and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He has also just starred in Danny Boyle’s acclaimed Frankenstein at the National Theatre. Shaun Evans - Nick Shaun starred in The Take with Tom Hardy, and played Annette Bening’s young lover in Being Julia. On stage he was a brilliant Kurt Cobain in Sid and Kurt in the West End; he has just been cast as the young Inspector Morse in the prequel to the series. Peter McDonald - Gary Peter starred in BBC Films’ When Brendan Met Trudy. On stage, Peter starred in the Old Vic’s Dancing at Lughnasa, and played opposite Jonathan Pryce in The Caretaker last year. Peter has also recently directed award winning short film Pentecost. Sinead Matthews - Sharon Sinead starred with Daniel Mays in Half Broken Things; she was Miss Cliff in The Boat that Rocked. She starred in the BBC’s In Love with Barbara, playing the An Artificial Eye Release 7 young Barbara Cartland. Sinead is also an accomplished stage actress, most recently seen in the National Theatre’s Our Class and Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy. PRODUCTION TEAM D R Hood - Writer/ Director Hood directed multi-award winning short films The Other Man with Anna Maxwell Martin (Edinburgh short film award 2006) and Journey Man with Ruth Madoc, which showed in festivals worldwide after its London FF premiere, won many awards and had UK cinema release. She was a selected writer on Warp Films’ Re-Animate scheme 2010. Her twisted rom- com Over and Under, was recently a finalist for the I-Features scheme. Simon Onwurah – Producer Simon has produced across many genres, drama, factual and entertainment, including the Royal Television Society award-winning Who Stole The Soul? (BBC). Simon has produced work for national and international networks including BBC, C4, More 4, ITV, Five, HBO, PBS and M-Net. He is working with Hood on their next project, comedy feature Over and Under. Annemarie Lean-Vercoe – Cinematographer Annemarie studied cinematography at the National Film and Television School where she won the Kodak Student Commercial Award in Cinematography. Recent projects include shooting a section of Michael Winterbottom’s feature Seven Days and shooting on feature docs Erasing David and Moving to Mars, directed by Mat Whitecross. Andrew Lovett – Composer Andrew’s work covers a variety of forms including small-scale opera, chamber music and electroacoustic composition. He has worked with Hood before on An Artificial Eye Release 8 both her short film Small War and on her stage production of Aristophanes’ Birds. His new opera, Don’t Breathe A Word, about a UK diplomat adrift in Kazakhstan, is now in development with the ROH2 Opera Development Programme at the Royal Opera House. ANDREW LOVETT (COMPOSER) The way into the emotional heart of the story for me was the shot where Dawn (Claire Foy) picks out Debussy's "Claire de Lune" on an old piano. This suggested the use of a piano theme to articulate Dawn's emotional world… Like a folk-tale, the music for Wreckers begins with a question: a lullaby, from which three threads emerge. A breezy tune for violin and accordion introduces the story. Then Dawn's growing emotional investigation becomes a piano theme, at first dreamy, but later more urgent. Finally, nightmares and the way they protrude into real life - manifest as dreamscapes that recall snatches of sound, dialogue and musical fragments…. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH (DAVID) It's great to play outside the usual casting demographic and to be asked to improvise with a group of actors whose work I have admired as an audience. Dictynna knew the world and background of her characters stories with tender detail and still let us explore our own ideas about them. David is a complex one and understanding his past was key to making sense of his actions although I think in the final edit there is a good ambiguity that allows an audience to reach for clues or understanding instead of the usual passive drip feed you are patronised by when it comes to the whys what's and wherefores of a fictional character. Much better to let an audience play detective than have everything explained and then forgotten about. An Artificial Eye Release 9 Certain freedoms are great with a tighter budget and yet there are also new restrictions.

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