The Thirteenth Tale

Director James Kent has a sensitive touch that deserves recognition and praise in this age of formulaic CGI films where character is more often than not ignored, or simply mass-produced to wooden specifications.

The film's curious title, THE THIRTEEN TALE, refers to a book of just 12 tales. The 13th tale amounts to the narrative that its dying author - superbly portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave - is conveying to a contracted biographer, intelligently played by Janet Amsden. The author's name I could not narrow down to Adeline or Emmeline because of the strange, almost transmutable relation between the twin sisters. However, one can reasonably assume that the 13th and final is the tale written by Amsden, who reveals that she too had a twin sister who died knocked down by a car, a death for which she blames herself. Thus, Redgrave and Amsden in a sense become spiritual twins, too, and that final tale is the result of their collaboration which starts edgily but ends on a tender, friendly note.

This TV film largely shot in a decaying manor house that still reflects past grandeur has the quality of Gothic vision and contained horror interlaced with credible, if deliberately evasive, characterization. Bedridden Redgrave, taking liquid morphine to relieve constant physical pain - to add to the pain of losing her sister(s) - narrates in a rather dettached manner, admitting that she physically beat up her sister but could not tell why.

Thus, she leaves her biographer with some interpretative loose ends that the latter supposedly weaves together into THE THIRTEENTH TALE.

Exquisite cinematography by Jean-Philippe Gossart, fittingly restrained musical score, sharp yet touching screenplay by Diane Setterfield off the novel by Christopher Hampton.

Definite must-see. 8/10.

The film was pushed as a spooky, supernatural story when it is more of a thriller.

Vanessa Redgrave is the dying writer. Olivia Coleman is the biographer called in to write a story of her youth in a large house with a dysfunctional family.

A mother who went mad. A father on the verge of madness plus uncontrollable sisters who are a burden to the housekeepers.

The film takes a while to get going but the book has been adapted for the screen by Oscar winner Christopher Hampton.

As the film develops, secrets are revealed about the twin sisters and their effect of the people around them.

The film is well acted and the story gradually draws you in and surprises you as it does not go the way you think it will.

Of course I have never read the book so no comparison is made with the novel. It's a drama that stands in its own merits.

Based on a best-selling Gothic novel, THE THIRTEENTH TALE contains all the virtues characteristic of contemporary BBC drama; lavish locations with plenty of exterior shots, ornately decorated interior shots, 'mood' lighting designed to create a spooky atmosphere, and a cast of well- known actors given full opportunity to show off their creative talents. In this particular piece, aging novelist Viola Winter (Vanessa Redgrave) enlists the services of little-known writer Margaret Lea (Olivia Colman) to recount her autobiography, including her Viola's mysterious childhood when her family home (Anglefield House) burned to the ground. However Viola is herself a writer of fiction, so we never quite know whether what she recounts is 'the truth' or not (if the truth exists, of course). Christopher Hampton's screenplay allows for plenty of exchanges between the protagonists, as well as creating a 'hall-of- mirrors' like effect in which nothing is what it seems to be. However the narrative of THE THIRTEENTH TALE does tend to sag; like many BBC dramas, the director James Kent seems too much concerned to create atmosphere through music and location shooting (both interior and exterior), both of which tend to impede the progress of the plot. The denouement, when it comes, is both predictable and un-scary. One is left with the feeling that the story could have been far more effectively recounted in a sixty-minute slot.

...not generally a fan of 'ghostly' stories but was curious to see the fine cast of The 13th Tale. It was gripping from the beginning, superb acting, stunningly pretty and horrid little girls, sensational sets and music which really helped keep the concentration - a marvellous production and of course original story. Having been drawn in, I was soon to be flabbergasted when I realised some of it was shot at Duncombe Park where I was at prep. school in the 60's - a first shot of the entrance gates, the drive and steps to the front door I knew at once! - a much loved place by most of us who were lucky enough then to have assembly and put on the Nativity Play in the main Saloon,walk through the doors onto the terrace, build dens around the Yew Walk and around the Temples, play on the same swing and around Father Time, admire the mahogany staircase only for the staff to use, peer down into the Main Hall with its chequerboard floor waiting for parents to arrive, have story time each evening with the Head whilst sitting round her on the floor of her Study, the Library... I was transfixed and quite horrified to see the house as burnt out shell!! How did you do that? overall a magnificent and moving production, just a perfect setting for the story... thank you to Heyman Productions and the BBC

'The Thirteenth Tale', a new BBC drama, tells the story of madness in an upper class family. There's a twist in the tale, but finding a way to convey it critically maims the dramatic structure: the story is told, entirely in hindsight, in a way that kills engagement, promoting the mundane story of the telling into the foreground over the potentially more interesting story that's actually being told. One can also note that this is the sort of tale where, however neglected or crazy its young protagonists are supposed to be, they never fail to look anything but ravishing. I found it psychologically unconvincing and essentially dull.