RICHARD’S BLOG

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I became a playwright in 1996, having been an avid theatregoer throughout my life (averaging around 120 plays a year – watching, not writing!) I semi-retired from my day job shortly thereafter and for the next 25 years I worked only part-time, allowing me time to write. I ventured briefly into the world of television and wrote a couple of screenplays, although this pretty much came to nothing, except for TAPS making a short film of one of my scripts starring (a virtually unknown) Benedict Cumberbatch and Georgia Mackenzie, which was cool, and sufficient to get me BAFTA membership. Since the pandemic, theatre in the UK has never really found its way back to what it used to be, and so my attention has drifted more towards film. I am now fully retired from my day job and whilst I still visit the theatre two or three times a month, I now watch upwards of 500 films a year (crazy, but true!) Since I watch so many films and can write, I decided to create a blog – it seemed a very 21st-Century thing to do.
REVIEW: Midwinter Break ★★★☆☆

REVIEW: Midwinter Break ★★★☆☆

Midwinter Break is a 2026 drama film directed by Polly Findlay, from a screenplay by Bernard MacLaverty and Nick Payne, based on MacLaverty’s 2017 novel of the same name. It was released in the UK on Friday, 20 March.

One Christmas Eve, Stella (Lesley Manville) books a mini-break to Amsterdam as a surprise joint-present for her architect husband Gerry (Ciarán Hinds) and herself. There is an early suggestion that this may be an attempt to shore up an ailing marriage, although this seems to be belied by how affectionate and loving they are together.

However, all is not as rosy as it seems. We learn that Stella, suffering somewhat from empty-nester syndrome, a sense of loneliness fuelled by her husband’s excessive drinking, and from a feeling of guilt relating to an incident when she was pregnant many years previously, plans to leave her Glasgow home and live a devout solitary life in a women-only religious retreat in Amsterdam.

We also learn that the couple moved to Glasgow to escape the troubles in Northern Ireland back in the 1970s, following the incident which I have already mentioned and another where a building development designed by Gerry had been burned down, effectively sapping all of his architectural ambition, and driving him to waste his talent and turn to drink.

I think all this was interesting enough, and could have worked well, however the writing was very workmanlike and, perhaps it is the playwright in me, but I could not help thinking ‘show, don’t tell’: the key moments of the plot were far too dialogue heavy. I cannot fault the acting: both Hinds and Manville were excellent in the leading roles and there was an interesting cameo from Niamh Cusack as Kathy, an Irish expatriate already living in the city. However, it fell a long way short of the film it could have been.

Ultimately, I find it difficult to recommend Midwinter Break, but I also cannot condemn it out of hand. I suggest that you wait until it is streamed in the comfort of your own sitting room, then watch it and make up your own mind.

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