The Escape
classified 15Please note: This was screened in Aug 2018
In Dominic Savage’s moving portrait of a failing marriage, Gemma Arterton delivers a commanding performance full of unwavering conviction as a suburban housewife and mother suffocating under the weight of her domestic burdens.
Tara (Arterton) loves her children deeply and to all those around her, her life is seemingly perfect. Playing a dutiful, careworn wife and mother she is advised to count her blessings. But Tara feels trapped. She knows there is something fundamentally missing. So when her friends and family fail to understand the depth of her desperation, her ideas and feelings become so overwhelming that she has to run away. Embarking on a bold and perilous journey, leaving behind her husband and children, she attempts to discover the woman she really is, what she really feels and the life she really wants.
Shot in a claustrophobic, urgent, realist style by cinematographer Laurie Rose (frequent collaborator of Ben Wheatley), Savage’s intensely visual storytelling, aided by Arterton’s raw and affecting performance, contemplates with an unflinching eye the uncomfortable fallout of a life being lived in quiet desperation.