11 April 2019

"The Girl in the Cafe"



I couldn't find an official trailer for this 2005 made-for-television BBC drama, so I've embedded someone's screencap of the opening couple minutes of the film.  Bill Nighy is at the top of his game portraying a painfully shy civil servant who has a chance encounter with Kelly Macdonald's character.  Although the storyline centers on world poverty and global aid, the power of the film comes from the sensitive portrayal of the relationship between these two actors.
"The film was noted at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards, where it received seven nominations and won Outstanding Made for Television Movie, Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special for [screenwriter] Curtis, and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for Macdonald."
Available on Netflix; I found the DVD in our local library.   I can recommend it unreservedly.

5 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed this film when it came out- as a dvd back in the day of brick & mortar rental stores. Particularly for it highlighting Nighy's wide acting range- When compared with his contemporary wild roles in Love Actually and a Pirates of Caribbean sequel. May be a touch less politically of the minute with the state of current european politics. I do not currently find it on netflix as a stream or Disc. I have had it on my "saved" queue from netflix for a while now, with an unknown availability date. looks like it can be rented for stream $3-4 from amazon, apple, Googleplay, vudu.

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    Replies
    1. I found this DVD listing -

      https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Girl-in-the-Cafe/70035189

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    2. correct. i have a number of saved titles in my queue. including that very one. They cannot be given a numerical preference. I.E. you cannot move them to the top of your queue. For example, I have: How I won the War, North Dallas Forty, Ishtar, Tommy, Cactus Flower, Brassed Off and a bunch more in Saved. also not available. some of these were available - How I Won The War & Brassed Off were streamable some time ago. others- Ishtar- I have never seen offered.

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    3. Perhaps the user interface varies in different countries. I am able to drag the 100+ movies in my queue up and down, and when I mouse over the entries a "move to top" icon appears next to the "trash" one (for DVDs, not streaming). Ishtar I see available only as Blu-ray.

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