Director – Carol Morley – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 106m
****1/2
Road movie in which her psychiatric nurse drives an artist with mental health issues from London to an open entry exhibition in the North – in cinemas from Friday, October 27th following premieres in the 2023 Raindance Film Festival (UK premiere) and 2022 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (world premiere)
In these days of US-style promotion, branding and media, it’s easy to think of artists as high profile, rich and successful. While some are, that’s not what an artist is: an artist is, quite simply, someone who makes art. (If they’re a good artist, they make good art. Whatever that is.) The subject of Morley’s new road movie is the artist Audrey Amiss (1933-2013) who, although she exhibited her work a number of times during her lifetime, received scarcely any recognition in that period. She suffered from mental health issues and was in and out of mental hospitals throughout her life.
Audrey (Monica Dolan) is regularly visited in her London flat by psychiatric nurse Sandra (Kelly Macdonald). One day, she asks Sandra to drive her to an exhibition which has an open call for artists, as she’s never exhibited and feels the time has come.… Read the rest