Antonio and Jane

Antonia and Jane are convinced that they are best friends although they really shouldn't be. They have known each other since birth and have been jealous of each other ever since. Jane thinks that her life is pretty empty, whereas Antonia seems to have succeeded in everything. These women that live completely different fives nevertheless have a few things in common: a man, a therapist and an annual reunion.

Comment:
The British director Beeban Kidron wittily deals with the neuroses of the middle crass woman of today; the competitive relationships to other women, problems with men, sexuality and career. Two women, Antonia and Jane, sublimely interpreted by Saskia Reeves and Imelda Staunton, each tell the psychologist they share about their respective problems. Jane talks about her inferiority complex when it comes to Antonia, who stole Jane's teenage love from her. She also goes into her unsatisfied sexlife. For example, her lover Norman can only get excited if Jane starts the act off by reading aloud from the novels of Iris Murdoch and Jane hates Iris Murdoch! Antonia on her part
has an unfaithful husband and at work she is bullied by her headstrong and self-centered boss. Both of them suffer under the compulsion of keeping up the apparent surface at any cost.
In Antonia and Jane Kidron uses a very selfconscious style where the part of the first person narrator shifts from Antonia to Jane, with the psychologist as an attentive listener. ''Voice-over'' narrative was characteristic of the ''film noir''of the 40's which was influenced by literature. The first film to use voice-over was William Howard's The Power and the Glory in 1933. The script writer Preston Sturges was applauded for his innovation which was introduced under the label ''narratage''. This narrative technique had a renaissance in French firm of the 60's, where it was used to create
an ironic distance between sound and image. And it is precisely in subtle irony, with the typically British understatement, that Antonia and Jane excels.
Beeban Kidron received some international renown after her TV series Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Antonia and Jane establishes Kidron as Great Britain's most interesting new female filmmaker.
Erik Hedling

Medverkande
Imelda Staunton, Saskia Reeves: Producent
George Faber: Manus
Marcy Kahan: Foto
Rex Maidment: Musik
Rachel Portman: Talat språk
English