Screening of Lance Hammer's British drama 'Queen At Sea', starring Juliette Binoche, with descriptive subtitles on the last two showings.
Queen At Sea is playing at MAC Birmingham this week, with four screenings running from Monday 19 October through to Thursday 22 October. It's a British film directed by Lance Hammer, and it's the kind of story that sticks with you long after the credits roll.
The plot centres on Amanda, played by Juliette Binoche, who walks in on her elderly parents — Leslie, played by Anna Calder-Marshall, who is living with dementia, and her husband Martin, played by Tom Courtenay — in what appears to be a consensual sexual encounter. Her first instinct is to call the police, and that's where the real work begins. It's a moral maze of a film, and the acting is superb across the board, especially in the way it handles the relationship between the three of them.
Beyond the immediate shock of that opening scene, it's a drama that challenges how we think about and treat the elderly, particularly when dementia is in the mix. It's a quiet, focused piece of filmmaking that asks some uncomfortable questions about autonomy and care, and it doesn't shy away from the messy parts. The film won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale, so it's already got some serious credentials behind it.
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There are four screenings in total, all in the afternoons: Monday 19 October at 3:00pm, Tuesday 20 October at 2:30pm, Wednesday 21 October at 4:00pm, and Thursday 22 October at 4:00pm. The final two sessions on Wednesday and Thursday include descriptive subtitles. Tickets start from £11.95, and if you're logged in, companion tickets are free.
