1930s London; two sisters - Madeleine and Dinah - one pretty, the other clever. One marries Rickie; the other falls in love with him. He begins an affair, which is to have repercussions throughout their lives.
Madeleine and Dinah haven't met for fifteen years - they come together and the memories come flooding back.
For Dinah it begins with that first evening, the evening when she knew that the affair was going to begin. She was staying with her older married sister, the respectable Madeleine and at dinner that evening she and a dull young man announced their engagement. Amidst the celebration she caught Rickie's eye and then they knew. That night he stood in her bedroom doorway for a moment, just long enough to say Dinah, you know you can’t go through with this. Break it off. Break it off and then was gone.
For Madeleine the memory begins at the moment when she discovered the affair. She threw Rickie out of the house and yet found herself desperate for him to come back. That evening he did and from then on she fought to keep him. The affair and the marriage carry on, the battles and passion increasingly more desperate and intense - and when it ended no one seemed to have won and fifteen years later the sisters have to work out for themselves which one he loved and what it was they did to the man they both loved.
Madeleine and Dinah haven't met for fifteen years - they come together and the memories come flooding back.
For Dinah it begins with that first evening, the evening when she knew that the affair was going to begin. She was staying with her older married sister, the respectable Madeleine and at dinner that evening she and a dull young man announced their engagement. Amidst the celebration she caught Rickie's eye and then they knew. That night he stood in her bedroom doorway for a moment, just long enough to say Dinah, you know you can’t go through with this. Break it off. Break it off and then was gone.
For Madeleine the memory begins at the moment when she discovered the affair. She threw Rickie out of the house and yet found herself desperate for him to come back. That evening he did and from then on she fought to keep him. The affair and the marriage carry on, the battles and passion increasingly more desperate and intense - and when it ended no one seemed to have won and fifteen years later the sisters have to work out for themselves which one he loved and what it was they did to the man they both loved.
- producers:
- Martin Pope
- director(s):
- Thaddeus O Sullivan
- cast:
- Helena Bonham Carter, Olivia Williams, Paul Bettany
- photography:
- December 2001
More information on IMDB (external link)