Review of The Cement Garden (1993) by Nadia C — 05 Sep 2010

I was suprised to see this film as highly rated as it is when I came to this entry. I read the Ian McEwan novel many years ago and so knew that Andrew Birkin would have difficulty bringing the story to the screen. I wasn't mistaken - the film leaves out much of the detail that made the book hang together. This was, I suspect, partially to do with practical problems of involving child actors in simulated sex - a difficulty the whole film had to navigate throughout.

Overall, the film lacked the punch that the book packed - I think the difficulty lay in exactly that. This is a nearly impossible story to depict cinematically.

Add to that the fact that the acting wasn't brilliant, there were a bunch of non-English accents in this apparently British story, and it can be missed. Easily.