Ronde de nuit

It had so much potential. The actors were good, the set design was accurate as well, but with the way the plot was sequenced, it doesn't keep you on the hook. 20 minutes through the movie, your attention will start to wander. In fact, the whole first hour had so many unnecessary fillers and the bland music score is that of a typical TV movie which adds further to the injury. Then towards the end, when things started to get interesting and after enduring that one and a half hour, it gives you a half-baked ending. Maybe with a better arranged storyboard, this movie would have been masterpiece. But for now, it'll be a 5.

Great cast and performances in this soapy flick. Those where really dark times for England. A lot of suffering everywhere. Claire Foy, charming as a fairy.

Adapting a book to the screen is tough. You need to be brutal, cutting away entire plot lines, even characters to serve your purpose. I haven't read The Night Watch but this adaptation shows all the signs of a too-reverential approach. That's a shame because it gets a lot of things right, a few breathtakingly so. In those moments, it's unlike anything I've seen. You could pitch it as Aimee and Jaguar meets The End of the Affair but at its best it's better than either of those films. It's Anna Maxwell Martin's portrayal of Kay Langrish that takes it to those heights. Claire Foy turns in a wonderful performance but she has less to work with. Unfortunately, The Night Watch is also saddled with at least one too many plot strands and a stunning miscalculation in thinking that Bath and or Bristol could double for wartime London. I know it's hard to find much of the capital that hasn't been tarted up since 1945 but west country stone and Georgian porticos, along with hills that put Lisbon to shame, don't fool anyone. And there are other misjudgments. There's a technical device which is used three times. You'll know it when you see it. The first use is amazing, emotionally spot on. The second is just confusing and the third downright clunky. As is some of the dialogue. "War changes people... and not necessarily for the better." In a book, that leadenly expositional second phrase may be necessary. In a film, it's amateurish. With a firmer, more demanding hand, this might have stood as a genuinely great work. Even as is, it's better than almost anything else you'll find on British or American TV so enjoy, despite the flaws. You won't regret it.

This is a feature-length adaptation of Sarah Water's book of the same name.

I first came across Sarah Water's writing when I watch Tipping The Velvet on TV. I enjoyed the series so much that I then read the book, which was a great read. (I thoroughly recommend you read the book and watch the series - I don't think the order matters).

I guess the reason that I wasn't bowled over by this drama stems from the fact that I am not a fan of the book. I read it a few months ago, and whilst I enjoyed it, it was nowhere near as good as Tipping The Velvet. I think the problem being that whilst it has interesting characters, the story just wasn't strong enough and it just seemed to pootle along without much direction.

Saying that though, I would still recommend that you watch this drama as it is very atmospheric and the acting is on the whole good, especially the wonderful Anna Maxwell Martin, who is always very watchable, as is Clare Foy.

I watched this quite literally minutes after finishing the book it's based on. With that in mind, I find that it is a very faithful adaptation of the book; only changing minor elements, mainly for the sake of cutting down scenes and giving more of a conclusive ending than the book. However, I'm not sure that this makes it a good movie.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, but a lot of that was because I knew what was going on in the heads of each character in every scene. I had the narrative of the book backing up the long silent scenes. I feel like without knowing the book, it is a movie with sparing dialogue, and a lot of inference. It's more like looking at a set of well-crafted paintings than a guided journey.

Still, as it is faithful to a rich source, it has excellent characters, which are the main structure of the story. I feel they did a good job with casting all-around, and in the end I felt like I got to experience rereading the book on fast-forward with new visuals.