Let Me Go

Made you think a lot about how individual and family fortunes are forever impacted by involvement in major world events, when everyone else has moved on or forgotten. Very atmospheric locations and music. Left slightly curious about the role of other (male) family members who didn't feature - but maybe not that important to the main drama.

Polly Steele does a wonderful job of exploring the characters, their relationships with each other and the way each generation deals with the past and, without giving too much away, Helga's story gives a very different perspective of the impact of WWII.

A well written, directed and shot film with an excellent soundtrack that almost becomes another character, and definitely worth seeing.

Based upon the true life memoire of Helga Schneider, Let Me Go explores the effect of abandonment and its rippling impact on family relationships; in this instance between four generations of women in the same family. A fantastic cast led by Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply) playing Helga deliver on a thoughtful emotional and superbly adapted screenplay from Polly Steele (who also directs this independently financed piece – prize winning at Bentonville for the ensemble cast and part of the official selection for the Edinburgh Film Festival). Set in the London of 2000, we meet Helga as a woman working as a dressmaker in London who receives an unsettling letter and puts it away as her granddaughter calls into the shop. With a bit of cajoling by the granddaughter, Emily (Lucy Boynton – Sing Street), we learn Helga's cousin, Eva, has written from Vienna to say that Helga's mother, Traudi is close to death in a nursing home. That sad news is not only a revelation for Emily and Helga's own daughter, Beth (as a somewhat lost soul and free spirit by Jodhi May) as neither were aware of a Traudi's being alive, but it is clear that Helga doesn't want to talk about the estrangement. It is only with some interweaving of flashbacks and Helga's own reluctant partial remarks that we learn that 60 years earlier Helga (then only four years old), is left in wartime Germany by Traudi to the care of an aunt. Traudi embodies many contradictions as both vulnerable, needy and confused old woman in a care home, but then at times revealing that she is sharp, devious and quite wicked. Without doubt played brilliantly by Swedish actress, Karin Bertling (The Bridge and Wallander). Emily's naïve excitement at discovering she has a long lost great- grandmother and her genuine affection for Helga sees her wheedling onto the trip to Vienna where we then get to follow not only the tides of Helga and Traudi's lives, but to see the unmistakable effects that mark Beth and Emily with the inevitable unravelling of family secrets and guilt. Underpinned by a moving and sympathetic soundtrack composed by Phil Selway (Radiohead) beautifully using a string quartet to mirror the main protagonists and the beautiful and poignant settings in and around Vienna, this film makes one think about the very essence of life, relationships and family ties. Bravo to the UPP for giving this two sold out shows and I hope there may be a growing take up of this small masterpiece of storytelling.

CHARLIE MCGINTY

Let Me Go is a thoroughly engaging film which is both entertaining and at times shocking. It brings into sharp focus the enduring and absolute nature of human evil and its affect on future generations. The film is beautifully shot and the performances by Juliet Stevenson and Karin Bertling are stunning.

A terrific, mostly female cast bring complex characters to life in this moving drama based on a genuinely unsettling true story. The locations are beautiful and the film is gorgeously shot. A bittersweet and compelling story of four generations of women.