Press Archive 2022

‘The Offer’ Star Colin Hanks Knows His Character is Easy to Loathe: “He Stands for a Lot That I Am Against” – Hollywood Reporter – 29th April 2022 [Extract]

“What I wanted was for people to take one look at him and say, ‘I know what this guy’s all about’ and think of him as an asshole, actually,” says the actor, who assures the character has an arc.

BY RYAN PARKER

Speaking of team, I am curious which of your fellow actors really blew your mind in their transformation because they’re all fantastic. 

I was only able to see a little bit of Justin Chambers’ performance as [Marlon] Brando, but I thought it was incredible. And I was only able to see a little of Anthony Ippolito’s [Al] Pacino, who’s great. But the one I enjoyed the most, and that’s probably because I had a front-row seat, was Matthew Goode’s Bob Evans. It really was an inspiration to see a fellow actor just go for it. He took it all and made his Bob seem completely real but at the same time, larger than life, which is a hard thing to do. Watching the episodes, he is a living human being, and I can see his brain work. And it was also so much fun working with him.

Full article – Click here.

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HOW THE OFFER RECREATES THE GODFATHER’S BEHIND-THE-SCENES DRAMA – Rotten Tomatoes editorial – 28th April 2022 [Extract]

STARS MATTHEW GOODE, GIOVANNI RIBISI, AND DAN FOGLER AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER NIKKI TOSCANO TALK CREATING THE LIMITED SERIES ABOUT THE MAKING OF ONE OF THE GREATEST FILMS OF ALL TIME.

by Kimberly Potts

2. MATTHEW GOODE IS A SCENE-STEALER AS ROBERT EVANS

The Offer: Matthew Goode

(Photo by Miller Mobley/Paramount+)

The entire cast, which also includes Juno Temple as Ruddy’s assistant Bettye McCartt, Patrick Gallo as The Godfather novel author Mario Puzo, Burn Gorman as Gulf & Western head Charles Bluhdorn, and Colin Hanks as Gulf & Western executive Barry Lapidus, is stellar, but the big scene stealer throughout the series is Matthew Goode as Hollywood legend Robert Evans, the larger-than-life Paramount honcho who was a champion of The Godfather But Evans, like many of the movie’s cast and producers, went through a lot of personal and professional problems during the Godfather production, and The Offer’s writers used those experiences to portray Evans in a more vulnerable light than the one he himself painted in his classic memoir The Kid Stays in the Picture and his reputation in Hollywood.

“It was important to all of us writers to be bringing that sort of nuance to light, humanizing Joe Colombo, humanizing Robert Evans in a lot of different ways,” Nikki Toscano says. “We all have different perspectives on what each of us has to do to get through the day, and it was like shining a little baby light on some of that, to better understand their thought process and not make them caricatures. I think when you’re trying to portray someone that really existed, that was already so larger-than-life, it’s sort of incumbent upon you to illuminate the parts that people may not have seen.”

As for Goode’s performance, specific kudos go to his capturing of Evans’ voice, which anyone who’s seen an Evans interview, or the documentary version of The Kid Stays in the Picture, will appreciate and enjoy. Evans’ loquaciousness and ability to “choreograph his words” was an inspiration to Bob Odenkirk when he created his Saul Goodman character. “I’d like to say it was something more exciting than just I’m a sort of a baritone, so I guess there’s a bit of a match to that,” Goode says of creating the voice of his Evans. “Particularly, when (I woke) up in the morning, I was able to find it pretty easily, or certainly the timbre … it’s the cadence you have to work on. It’s that rhythm of his, and once you’ve got it, you can’t not be in it. So you felt like you could improvise. But it took a couple of months of hard work.”

And a tip Goode shares when we mention his performance as Evans makes us want to re-read The Kid Stays in the Picture: “Don’t read it, listen to it, the next time you do it,” the actors says. “Because I read it as well, but Colin Hanks says you’ve got to listen to him read it. Evans reads the whole book. It’s not the truncated version like the documentaries, and it’s meant to be phenomenal. So, it’s going to be my treat now.”

Full article – Click Here.

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The making of The Godfather, a story almost as epic as the movie – The Sydney Morning Herald – 27th April 2022

By Michael Idato

There are films which amuse and delight. And there are films which inspire, frighten and impress. And then, there is The Godfather, the 1972 crime film masterpiece, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, co-written by Coppola and Mario Puzo, on whose best-selling novel the film was based.

The film is close to unique in cinema history, a high benchmark shared by only a handful of masterpieces. Its cast included Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan and Richard Castellano, playing various members of the Corleone mafia family, their friends and rivals. It gave birth to a trilogy, though it is the original which remains truly unequalled.

British actor Matthew Goode first saw The Godfather on video in his late teens, “actually rented from a local video shop in Clifton Mary,” he says, laughing. The actor grew up nearby, in Exeter, in south-west England. Almost 30 years later he has come full circle with that moment, with a starring role in The Offer, the dramatisation of the making of the film, a story almost as big as the film itself.

“I fell in love with The Godfather immediately because I’d never seen anything shot like that before,” Goode says. “It’s pretty different to Predator, you know what I mean? And it gave me my appreciation for directors of photography, who I genuinely think are masters of the dark arts.

“We’re very lucky to have it in that [single-film] format, and we’re very lucky that Coppola carved a different story out of the book,” Goode says. “The book was fine, the book is good, the book is readable, but the movie is something artistically on a different level. I can say that comfortably because I know that Mario has now passed away, and he’s not coming for me.”

The miniseries stars Goode as producer Robert Evans, Miles Teller as producer Albert S. Ruddy, Juno Temple as Ruddy’s assistant Bettye McCartt, Dan Fogler as writer/director Francis Ford Coppola, Patrick Gallo as novelist Mario Puzo, Burn Gorman as Gulf and Western owner Charles Bluhdorn, Colin Hanks as studio executive Barry Lapidus and Giovanni Ribisi as real-life crime family patriarch Joe Colombo.

The idea of creating historical narratives for television which contain fictional elements is not new. The Crown has been the subject of some criticism recently because of the way it smudges historical detail to suit the story. A more recent example, The Thing about Pam, went the opposite way and stuck to fact. The Offer is pure Hollywood, but Goode says the series is true to its promise.

“I know that there have been questions about other series that have done this sort of thing, particularly when some people are still alive, but this was fact-checked to within an inch of its life and there’s very, very many sources that will be able to go, oh, that did happen,” Goode says.

“Obviously, we’re not making a documentary, and so you’ll find that there are always, within this, those sorts of dramatisations,” Goode adds. “You’ll have composite characters, for example, Colin Hanks’ character was several naysayers, rather than just the one person who was Charlie Bluhdorn’s right-hand man, but ostensibly, it’s as close as we could get it.”

In tackling the role of Robert Evans, Hollywood offered Goode a multitude of people, still alive, who knew and worked with the man. But Goode was particularly struck by something Evans himself was famous for reminding people. “It’s like Bob would always say, there are three versions to anything. There’s your version, there’s my version and there’s the truth,” he says.

Most intimidating, Goode says, was capturing Evans’ physicality and voice. “He has such a unique timbre and cadence, and that’s fascinating and terrifying at the same time because you’re like, if I don’t get this right, I’m going to get laughed off the screen.

“Then luckily there was a day I was with Dexter [Fletcher, the director] and he’s like, you should be scared, but it’s a great story, it’s well written, we chose you because we think you can do the job, and then he just went, imagine how scared Anthony Ippolito is, he’s playing Al Pacino. And I was like, well, that does put it into perspective, a little bit.”

As a British-born actor Goode, like the Australian television audience who will watch The Offer, has a very specific perception of director Dexter Fletcher. Correctly identified as an actor/director, Fletcher’s earliest acting roles were playing Spike Thomson in the teen series Press Gang and Baby Face in the 1976 film Bugsy Malone, opposite then-kid stars Scott Baio and Jodie Foster.

“He does everything, he’s doing the voiceover for McDonald’s, I can’t escape the man, he’s on the radio in my car,” says Goode, laughing. “He has a gift, he has a superpower and that is that he can spin plates. He can put his foot into every world. I’m so looking forward to working with him again if I’m lucky.

“Dexter is a brilliant actor, he gets actors, he likes actors which is something because sometimes you work with a director, and you go, no, you shouldn’t be doing this job,” Goode says. “He’s just very, very smart, and I think, as you say, he’s been in this world, intoxicated by it and in love with it, since he was six years old.”

Fletcher set up the project, and directed its first two episodes. He was supposed to return for the final two, but a scheduling clash meant he could not. “And we mourned the loss of him, we wanted to finish this project for him because he gave us all this confidence,” Goode says.

“We adored him. Everyone adored him, and I’ve never been on a set where everyone would say that because he treats everyone with the greatest of respect,” Goode says. “But it’s also how it should be on set. I’m completely in love with the man, I must say, and also his wife Dalia [Ibelhauptaitė, the opera and film director and playwright].“

The screenplay of The Offer was written by Michael Tolkin, the novelist. It is true, Goode agrees, that Tolkin’s work as a novelist sets him up well to bring to the screen the story of a novel as dense and epic as The Godfather. But Goode singles out one of Tolkin’s credits as being particularly critical in capturing the energy behind-the-scenes of the film.

Tolkin wrote both the book and screenplay of The Player, Robert Altman’s critically acclaimed 1992 satirical comedy, about a studio executive who kills an aspiring screenwriter. The film is largely noteworthy as being packed with Hollywood in-jokes.

“So if anyone was going to be able to tell a Hollywood story and get it all in, it would be him,” Goode says. “It’s not like it’s just a stream of consciousness, I think it’s the amount of research that novelists undertake before they start writing. And it does take someone who can deal with the epic nature of the story, but also tie these little threads together. There’s a little bit of genius from the writers [Tolkin, Russell Rothberg, Nikki Toscano and others] and the dialogue is delicious.”

For Goode, himself, whose credits include The Good Wife, Downton Abbey (both the television series and film), The Crown and A Discovery of Witches, The Offerhas left an indelible mark on the canvas.

“I think when I started out, I was trying for this one way to do this, and I was quite blinkered, but the older I’ve gotten, and Dexter did ask me to do this occasionally, I like to try more things,” Goode says. “So rather than it be a line drawing, it’s now getting a bit more Jackson Pollock, so I am a little braver with my choices. In the end, though, I am just trying to please the director, that’s all I’m trying to do.”

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The Offer review – CRP – 27th April 2022 [Extract]

However, the show’s standout is the incessantly hilarious and quintessential 60s Hollywood producer, complete with the bronze tan, pearly white teeth and flashy suits, is Matthew Goode as Robert Evans. His opposing dynamic with Ruddy works as comedy gold and feels like an authentic portrayal of the old-timey movie producer who loves the lavish, party lifestyle.

Full article – Click Here

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The Offer – review – The Guardian – 27th April 2022 [Extract]

By Adrian Horton

Still, there are some bright spots. Goode is delightful as the charismatic, unstable Evans. Anthony Ippolito’s embodiment of a young and hungry Al Pacino is uncanny; the same cannot be said of Justin Chambers’ Marlon Brando whisper or Frank John Hughes’s portrayal of an aggressive, petty Frank Sinatra, both of which strain against the weight of iconography. And inside baseball can be fun – somehow the farther up Paramount Pictures’ ass this Paramount+ show goes, the more interesting it is. Teller is the kind of actor you want to watch throw some elbows to get things done, even if his faux gravelly voice slips in more intimate scenes.

All criticisms – and there are many – aside, the Offer remains watchable to the bloated end. It may not be the hard-won prestige of The Godfather, but in this over-saturated landscape content, that is its own form of achievement.

Full article –  Click Here.

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Paramount+’s ‘The Offer’: TV Review – Hollywood Reporter – 26th April 2022 [Extract]

The tumultuous production of ‘The Godfather’ gets limited-series treatment by creator Michael Tolkin, with a sprawling cast led by Miles Teller.

BY DANIEL FIENBERG

There’s bound to be general affection for Goode, who looks nothing at all like Evans, but delivers a fine rendition of the legendary raconteur’s velvety tones and Yiddish-littered carnival-barker cadences.
Full article – Click Here

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Why is ‘The Offer’ really useful viewing? – Gossipchimp.com – 26th April 2022 [Extract]

Matthew Goode.

He’s so good as long time producer and Paramount studio head Robert Evans that you just can not take your eyes off him.

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Paramount +’s ‘The Offer’ entertainingly dramatizes the struggle of a few folks to make ‘The Godfather’ –   TV Review – News Herald – 26th April 2022 – Extracts

Binge-worthy miniseries gets good work from Miles Teller and great work from Matthew Goode…

However, it is Goode’s sublime performance as Evans that is the show’s greatest asset.  Goode (Downton Abbey, The King’s Man) simply oozes smooth and cool whether Evans is casually enjoying a drink with a few lovely ladies at 9am or calmly solving problem after problem – at least for a while.

Full article on News Herald site – behind paywall.

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‘The Offer’ Review: The Classic Movie That Almost Wasn’t – Wall Street Journal – 26th April 2022 – Extract

A new series on Paramount+ dramatizes the shaky road Mario Puzo’s and Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Godfather’ took from page to screen.

Mr. Goode is perhaps the most entertaining element in the series, his Evans impersonation perfect, from the nasal singsong to the glad-handing Hollywood smarm.

Full article – Click Here

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Matthew Goode on ‘terrifying’ role in new show about the making of ‘The Godfather’ – National News – 26th April 2022

The British actor plays studio executive Robert Evans, who produced Francis Ford Coppola’s mob classic, in the miniseries ‘The Offer’

Matthew Goode says playing real life producer Robert Evans was 'a huge responsibility'. Photo: Paramount Pictures
Looking back at the career of Matthew Goode, you can’t help but wonder if he’s very brave, or simply a masochist. Of course, he’s appeared in a selection of British classics such as Downton Abbey and The Crown, as befits an English actor of his status, but it’s his choice of roles in high-profile adaptations that forces you to question his sanity.

In 2008, Goode took on the role of Charles Ryder in Julian Jarrold’s movie adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, a role that had already been immortalised by Jeremy Irons in the 1981 BBC drama — a show that revolutionised TV drama in an era before HBO and Netflix.

The following year, he played Ozymandias, the strangely loveable sociopath at the centre of Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen, a book widely regarded as the “greatest comic ever written”, and one that was deemed “unfilmable” by Moore himself.

Now, he’s stepping up to play Robert Evans, the Paramount Studio executive who oversaw production on The Godfather, and gave the film’s producer Albert S Ruddy (played by Miles Teller in the show) his big break. The Offer is a fascinating look at the troubled making of Francis Ford Coppola’s mob classic, considered by many to be one of the greatest movies of all time.

“The responsibility is huge, and it was terrifying,” Goode tells The National. “You have to remember also, I don’t mean it in a bad way, but if I was a golfer I’d be described as a ‘journeyman pro’, possibly even an amateur by some.

“Sometimes you just don’t have a choice, though, so I made this, and I still don’t quite understand how they thought I could pull Evans off.”

Such disarming modesty seems misplaced when viewed in the context of Goode’s impressive CV. One person who didn’t share Goode’s reservations was The Offer’s director Dexter Fletcher.

Matthew Goode as Robert Evans and Miles Teller as Albert S Ruddy in 'The Offer'. Photo: Paramount Pictures

“Sometimes you just need someone to have that belief in you that you don’t have yourself, and Dexter thought that some gangly bloke from England might be able to do it. So you do your homework and you just hope you won’t be the weak link,” Goode says. “Fear will drive you to a very focused place, and Dexter gave me the confidence.

“He basically put me in a canoe and kicked me out on to the river, and we negotiated the rapids together. If I had a valet, I would have turned to him and said ‘bring me my brown trousers.’”

The Offer is a behind-the-scenes tale of what, even by Hollywood standards, was a difficult production. It’s no surprise to learn that the mafia weren’t delighted to learn that a movie was being made of Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel, but Ruddy and Evans were treated to the full gangster playbook of shootings, dead animals in their beds, and the occasional kidnapping as some of the US’s leading crime families sought to close production down.

Eventually Ruddy would become close friends with gangster Joe Colombo, who acted as his protector, and can take credit for the film ever being completed. It’s also down to Colombo’s unofficial “editorial” role that eagle-eared viewers will notice the word “mafia” is not uttered once in Coppola’s film.

A scene from 'The Offer', which tracks the making of the classic film 'The Godfather'. Photo: Paramount Pictures

To add extra stress, Paramount Studio was in financial meltdown while the film was being made, and Evans himself was widely, but incorrectly, reported to have been sacked as production rolled on.

The screenplay for The Offer is based on Ruddy’s own recollections, with the Hollywood executive also serving as producer.

The irony is not lost on Goode. “It’s so weird that he’s the producer of this show,” he says. “I’m meeting him for dinner this week, and I’m so excited I’ll probably be tongue-tied.”

Matthew Goode and Miles Teller at the premiere of 'The Offer' in Los Angeles. AFP

In the first few scenes of The Offer, it soon becomes clear that the making of The Godfather was packed with almost as much drama as Coppola’s classic itself, and it’s incredible that it has taken so long for the story to be told.

Goode admits that he was aware of some of “the myths” around the making of the film — the tales of Marlon Brando’s bizarre behaviour on set, Coppola’s frequent arguments with the studio, and Puzo’s seemingly never-ending scriptwriting efforts are almost as famous as the film itself. But now that he’s entered the inner circle of Godfather historians, he admits there’s one person who stands out.

“What was really shocking was just how much Al put on the line, he just refused to quit,” he says. “There’s a quote from him that ‘every day I was producing that movie was the worst day of my life,’ just the sheer enormity and scale of what one man went through to get this film made. His life was literally on the line.

“Wouldn’t you want that kind of utterly dedicated producer to be on your next project?”

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The Offer Review: All Eyes are on Matthew Goode – TV Fanatic – 25th April – Extracts

By Carissa Pavlica 

Why is The Offer recommended viewing?

Matthew Goode.

He’s so good as longtime producer and Paramount Studios head Robert Evans that you cannot take your eyes off of him, and anything that doesn’t work about The Offer is swept under the rug.

Matthew Goode Breathes Live Into Robert Evans Tall - The Offer

Goode’s performance is brilliant as he transforms from the actor we’ve known from The Crown, A Discovery of Witches, Downton Abbey, and The Good Wife into Evans so entirely that it seems as if The Offer was always intended to be his vehicle.

As long as Goode’s Evans is in the forefront of The Offer, it doesn’t matter.

As Ruddy deals with the criminal underworld with his trusty assistant Bettye (Juno Temple) at his side, Evans is trying to save Paramount Studios.

Then owned by Gulf & Western, its chairman, Charles Bluhdorn (Burn Gorman), tried, again and again, to make life miserable for Evans. Evans, though, had already had success with Rosemary’s Baby. That film beat expectations. His gift was to recognize the next best thing.

He’d done that with early options on novels that hit the cultural zeitgeist.

As Bluhdorn threatened to close the door on Evan’s right as Paramount head with their ninth-place studio ranking, Evans never lost his optimism or charismatic way of gathering the troops with his rallying cry of big money makers lying in the wings.

Love Story and The Godfather had to pay off, and Evans was willing to move heaven and earth to make it happen.

Those are the moving parts of The Offer. Series creator Nikki Toscano and executive producer and her good friend, Russell Rothberg, hold it all together by balancing two stories — that of Ruddy, the producer and mafia wrangler, and of Evans as he battles for the fate of the studio he loves.

One is more successful than the other, evoking passion and determination as Goode’s colorful performance lights up the screen like old movie stars once did.

He’s not just Matthew Goode as Robert Evans. He becomes Robert Evans, body and soul. Whether he’s emulating Evans’s vocal gait or working a crowded party with all of the ’70s panache one can muster, Goode is having a hell of a time, something that seems to be missing from other performances in The Offer.

His is a mesmerizing performance, and if they announced they were snapping up rights to another series that followed Evans after his Paramount Studios tenure, there’s nobody else I’d want more in the role.

Evans’s love story with Love Story star Ali MacGraw (Meredith Garretson) is initially glossed over early on, but it outshines Ruddy’s less passionate affair with Francoise Glazer (Nora Arnezeder).

Ruddy and Glazer don’t connect well in life, and Teller and Arnezeder aren’t any better at making it work on screen.

Evans was larger than life, and Goode makes sure we know it. That’s even standing alongside such superstars as Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando (Justin Chambers), and Al Pacino (Anthony Ippolito).

Matthew Goode for The Offer

Although it’s hard to imagine everything Ruddy recalls could be taken as gospel, and The Offer lingers a little too long on the mob connection, it introduces a new generation to raking and charismatic Robert Evans, a talent with whom everyone should be acquainted.

He was the real deal, a true Hollywood success story, and Goode’s performance seals that deal handily.

Despite the saying, everyone isn’t a critic, and The Offer will prove entertaining to many no matter what the critics say.

The Godfather’s legacy is secure. There’s not much that can taint it, and here, we see how hard the key players fought to get it made and ensure its greatness. It’s not a perfect telling, but if The Offer was made with even a sliver of the love of the craft that brought us The Godfather, it’s worth the effort.

The first three episodes of The Offer premiere on Paramount Plus on Thursday, April 28, with a new episode dropping each subsequent week.

Full article – Click Here.

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‘The Offer’s’ Anthony Ippolito on Being Intimidated to Play Al Pacino: ‘It Makes You Want to Throw Up’ – Variety – 22nd April 2022 – Extracts

By Carson Burton

Co-star Matthew Goode plays Robert Evans, the legendary Paramount Pictures executive who greenlit “The Godfather.” Goode explained the difficulty of getting into the the character of Evans.

“You can go down so many wormholes on YouTube,” Goode told reporters on the carpet. “So I spent hours and hours on it, and I found one particular interview that I thought was brilliant because it summed up his personality. He sort of was so un-PC about Robert Redford and all that, and so I captured a lot from that. But still he’s not a private man, so I got to turn him up to 11 at some moments. And I get a great arc because the ups and downs for him are pretty massive in this.”

Full article – Click here.

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‘The Offer’ Review: Fascinating and Fun Dramatization Behind the Scenes of ‘The Godfather’ – C.Net – 21st April 2022 – Extracts

This Paramount Plus drama has its flaws, but it’s a treat for movie nerds, Godfather fans and anyone who loves the silver screen.

By Richard Trenholm
Matthew Goode shines as real-life movie mogul Robert Evans in this Paramount Plus drama about the creation of ’70s gangster epic The Godfather.
Perhaps the standout performance comes from Matthew Goode as fabled Hollywood impresario Robert Evans. Goode plays Evans as a groovy smoothie who nonetheless reveals hidden depths. He’s smarmy but capable of sincerity, manipulative yet loyal — and even seems to actually care about movies.
Full Article – Click Here.
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Review: Broadbent, Mirren charm in art heist pic ‘The Duke’ – Syndicated Interview – 20th April 2022 – Extract

By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer

it’s the balance between humor and pathos that makes this film work, and the trial scenes are the high point, with the bewigged judge and prosecutor clearly unprepared for the sympathetic response Bunton will receive. (Matthew Goode also impresses as an impossibly suave defense attorney — when Bunton first meets him, he says he feels like he’s about to be offered a gin and tonic.)

Full article here – Click Here.

 

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The Unexpected Sadness of “The Duke” – The New Yorker – 15th April 2022 [Extract]

By Anthony Lane
Roger Michell’s final feature, based on actual events and starring Jim Broadbent as an unlikely art thief, shows the late director’s affinity for autumnal characters…
… Exhibit A: Jeremy Hutchinson, the barrister who defends Kempton (and who was married, as the movie reminds us, to the great Shakespearean actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft). He is played by Matthew Goode, an actor whose sleek demeanor can seem like a protective shell. Here, however, that very suavity becomes a weapon, gracefully wielded in tandem with his client’s cussedness. When Hutchinson sits down, having made his final pitch to the jury, the prosecutor—his opposite number—looks across at him and smiles, as if to say, “Beautifully done, you bastard.” If this is Goode’s best performance to date, it’s because he conveys the conscious delight with which his character, bewigged and robed, is performing a starring role.
Full article – Click Here.

Radio Times – January 2022

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