1000 Nights in the Dark: Page Eight (2011)

Television Film | Thriller | English | 1h40m

Cast: Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon, Tom Hughes, Judy Davis, Saskia Reeves, Ewen Bremner, Rakhee Thakrar, Felicity Jones, Richard Lintern, Ralph Fiennes

Capsule review | 203 words | 29/08/11

An ageing MI5 agent, Johnny Worricker (Nighy, uncharacteristically understated), who has spent his entire career avoiding conflict and controversy, suddenly finds himself in trouble when he refuses to toe the party line, in Hare’s solidly crafted, reasonably well acted, and generally mildly diverting, though never entirely convincing secret service thriller. His problems begin when his boss – and oldest friend (Gambon) – dies suddenly after revealing a secret document to him that incriminates the Prime Minister (Fiennes) on a matter of US-related national security, which he's not prepared to just ignore. Strangely, however, although he soon comes to realise that his days may be numbered, he still finds the time to strike up an unlikely relationship with his comely activist neighbour (Weisz, who we all assume, right from the beginning, though wrongly so as it turns out, to be a duplicitous government spook, because why else would such an attractive young thing take a shine to Nighy’s creaky, world-weary character). He also finds time, as it happens, to reconnect with his semi-estranged daughter, Julianne (Jones), when news of her pregnancy and the death of her step-father bring them back together. Still, at least the bitter-sweet ending rings slightly less hollow. Fairly entertaining, never the less.

1000 Nights in the Dark: a collection of reviews of the single sentence, capsule, short, medium, and long variety, varying in length from fifty to a thousand-plus words, documenting my personal, exploratory journey through cinephilia.