Janice Beard 45 wpm

UK 1999

Reviewed by Kieron Corless

Synopsis

Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.

Scotland, the present. Janice Beard's mother Mimi developed agoraphobia from the shock of her husband dying at Janice's birth. Janice has since constantly invented stories to entice Mimi out of the house but to no avail. Janice leaves for London hoping to earn enough for a cure. Violet, a childhood friend, secures Janice a temp's position at Kendon Cars who are on the verge of launching a new model. Janice makes videotapes of her colleagues to send to Mimi, unwittingly capturing office junior Sean in the act of pilfering secret documents to pass to Kendon's rivals. Sean and a smitten Janice go on a date, during which he retrieves the incriminating videotape.

Janice is duped by Sean into signing documents which will dispatch the new car to a crusher's yard. When the car is discovered missing on the morning of the launch, Janice is interrogated. She realises Sean tricked her but the only proof is on a videotape she sent her mother. Company officials recover the videotape but, suspecting Mimi is involved, force her to accompany them to London. Under hypnosis, Janice remembers the address of the crusher's yard. She evades her interrogators and heads there, running into a now guilt-stricken Sean. They drive the new car to the launch, arriving in the nick of time. Sean is arrested. Janice is reunited with Mimi whose agoraphobia has finally been cured.

Review

Director of the shorts Daphne & Apollo and Symbiosis, Clare Kilner in her feature debut has her quixotic heroine Janice Beard move from her small Scottish hometown to alien London. While temping, Janice becomes the unwitting dupe of Sean, an Oxbridge-educated industrial spy masquerading as an office-boy geezer. This unlikely character enables co-writers Kilner and Ben Hopkins to graft romance and a crime-caper plot on to what is essentially light comedy. With her tall tales, Janice bears more than a passing resemblance to the eponymous hero of Billy Liar (1963). Where Billy resorted to fantasies to escape a humdrum reality, Janice's inventions are much more scaled-down, inextricably linked to low self-esteem and her mother's agoraphobia. But the film is least convincing when asking us to believe in Janice's extraordinary transformative impact on others. Despite her own dowdiness, she becomes the typing-pool fashion guru and Sean is improbably smitten by her wide-eyed lack of sophistication. Even Julia, her nightmarish supervisor, is compelled to recognise the error of her ways.

On the other hand, the video messages Janice sends her mother work well precisely because they're so transparently fake, yet important within the film's only credible, involving relationship. They supply some genuinely funny moments. We watch Janice through her video camera's eye as she bustles about her flat's dream kitchen until a perfectly timed cut reveals she's in a showroom. When it gently debunks Janice like this and exercises restraint the film is persuasive. The romance with Sean, for example, is wisely downplayed at the end, and Janice's first-ever sight of her mother outside their home is movingly low-key. The office scenes are the weakest element, and thoughts inevitably turn to Mike Nichols' comedy drama Working Girl which also focused on the interactions of female office workers but with far greater panache and comic insight. Here the dialogue isn't fast-paced, perceptive or funny enough to sustain interest and virtually every character is a stereotype. The script feels comfortable only when dealing with plot mechanics, so the pace finally picks up when Sean's sabotage is discovered.

One success is the discovery of newcomer Eileen Walsh. Her mobile facial expressions and emotional range make other, more experienced cast members seem wooden. It's good to see someone playing a temp who possesses such a winning ordinariness. On the whole Janice herself is an endearing, eccentric creation but the film lacks the sharpness that might capture the public's imagination as Billy Liar did back in the early 60s.

Credits

Director
Screenplay
Clare Kilner
Ben Hopkins
Directors of Photography
Richard Greatrex
Peter Thwaites
Editor
Mary Finlay
Production Designer
Sophie Becher
Music/Orchestrations
Paul Carr
©The Film Consortium Limited
Production Companies
The Film Consortium presents in association with the Arts Council of England/WAVE Pictures and Channel Four a Dakota film
Developed with the support of Judy Counihan Films Limited/Hungry Eye Films Limited & The Film Consortium Limited and the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England, London, England
Executive Producer
Jonathan Olsberg
Co-producer
Torsten Leschly
Line Producer
Miara Martell
Production Co-ordinators
Ann Lynch
Laura Evans
Unit Manager
Claire Tovey
Location Manager
Jeremy Johns
Post-production Supervisors
Miara Martell
Charlotte Vinther
Assistant Directors
Stephen Woolfenden
Beni Turkson
Matt Carver
Script Supervisor
Caroline O'Reilly
Casting
Director:
Susie Figgis
ADR Voice:
Brendan Donnison
Camera Operator
Jeremy Hiles
Steadicam Operators
Roger Tooley
Additional:
Jamie Harcourt
Optical/Visual Effects Editor
David Barrett
CGI/Digital Effects
Vinther Grafik (Denmark)
CGI/Digital Effects:
Lise Mierca
Lars Bjorn
Special Effects
Bob Hollow
Car Model Makers
Oliver Hodges
Toby Hawkes
Pierre Bohanna
Signwriter
Tony Statham
Art Director
Karen Wakefield
Scenic Artist
James Gemmill
Storyboard Artist
Miguel Sapochnik
Costume Designer
Michelle Clapton
Wardrobe Supervisor
Rose Goodhart
Chief Hair/Make-up Artist
Fae Hammond
Make-up Artists
Tracey Lee
Elisa Johnson
Title Design
Kemistry
Opticals
Peerless Camera Company
Solo Guitarist
Paul Gregory
Conductor
Andrew Richard Pearce
Music Supervisor
Gill Gilman
Music Editor
Kallis Shamaris
Sound Engineer
Toby Wood
Music Adviser
Andrew Weatherall
Music Consultants
Darrell Kok
Cool Music Ltd
Soundtrack
"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" by Joe South, performed by Lynn Anderson; "When You're in Love with a Beautiful Woman" by Even Stevens, performed/arranged by Mark Hinton Stewart; "National Express" by Neil Hannon, performed by Divine Comedy; "Listen to Me" by John McElhone, Sharleen Spiteri, performed by Texas; "Never Can Say Goodbye" by Clifton Davis, performed by Gloria Gaynor; "Marla", "Bomba Venezuela" by Victor Hugo, performed by Victor Hugo La banda; "Stop That Girl" by/performed by Vic Goddard; "Little Red Bottle" by/performed by Martin Stephenson; "Concerto No 2 for Piano and Orchestra" from "Elvira Madigan" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; excerpt from "Orpheus and Eurydice" by Christoph Willibald Gluck
Choreography
Francesca Jaynes
Sound Design
Stephen Griffiths
Sound Mixer
Ronald Bailey
Re-recording Mixers
David Humphries
Robert Thompson
Dialogue Editor
Phil Barnes
Foley
Artists:
Jason Swanscott
Dianne Greaves
Editor:
Richard Dunford
Stunt Co-ordinator
Nick Powell
Cast
Rhys Ifans
Sean
Patsy Kensit
Julia
David O'Hara
O'Brien
Eileen Walsh
Janice Beard
Sandra Voe
Mimi
Frances Gray
Violet
Zita Sattar
Jane
Amelia Curtis
June
Mossie Smith
Dolores
Sarah McVicar
Tracy
Eddie Marsan
Mr Tense
Perry Fenwick
Mr Button
Maynard Eziashi
Clive Morley
Robbie Barnett
Janice's father
Jean Murphy
midwife
Bill Leadbitter
doctor
Ella Stanley
baby Janice
Amy Lynch
young Janice
Laura Lumley
young Violet
Mary Ann O'Donoghue
1st office woman
Evelyn Voight
trolley lady
Richard Morant
boss
Ronnie Fox
stallholder
Steve English
guard
Gawn Grainger
Browne
Clive Merrison
Tobo
Joseph Deery
baby Sean
Paul Jones
young Sean
James Greene
Michael
Peter Quince
barman
Elder Sanchez
Alonso
Andrew Havill
Piers
Ken Drury
McHeath
Jonathan Hackett
Hartley
John McArdle
Pyesek
Quentin Wilson
himself
Stuart Pendred
policeman
Anna Copley
Sean's mother
Peter Copley
Sean's father
Certificate
tbc
Distributor
United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
tbc feet
tbc minutes
Dolby digital
Colour by
Technicolor Film Services
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011