ANNA MAXWELL MARTIN

THE DUKE (2022)
Starring Helen Mirren, Jim Broadbent, Fionn Whitehead, Matthew Goode, Anna Maxwell Martin, Aimee Kelly, Charlotte Spencer, Jack Bandeira, Sian Clifford and John Heffernan. Directed by Roger Michell.

In 1961, Kempton Bunton, a 60-year-old taxi driver, stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. It was the first (and remains the only) theft in the Gallery’s history. Kempton sent ransom notes saying that he would return the painting on condition that the government agreed to provide television for free to the elderly. What happened next became the stuff of legend. Only 50 years later did the full story emerge – a startling revelation of how a good man set out to change the world and in so doing saved his son and his marriage.

PHILOMENA (2013)
Starring Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Mare Winningham, Barbara Jefford, Ruth McCabe, Peter Hermann, Sean Mahon, Anna Maxwell Martin and Michelle Fairley. Directed by Stephen Frears.

The true story of one mother’s search for her lost son. Falling pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent of Roscrea to be looked after as a “fallen woman”. When her baby was only a toddler, he was whisked away by the nuns to America for adoption. Philomena spent the next fifty years searching for him in vain. Then she met Martin Sixsmith, a world-weary journalist as cynical as Philomena was trusting. Together they set off for America on a journey that would not only reveal the extraordinary story of Philomena’s son, but also the powerful bond that grew up between Philomena and Martin.

REVIEWS Philomena - A journey worth taking