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| 'Fiercesome artists' Tom Courtenay and Anna Calder-Marshall in Queen At Sea Photo: Curzon |
But one of the best in the business Jenefer Odell was brought on board the production of Queen At Sea simply because of the sensitive and intimate nature of some of the scenes between the pair. He plays Martin, the husband and carer of Leslie (Calder-Marshall) who is suffering from dementia but who on occasion still enjoys and sometimes instigates the physical part of their relationship.
When Leslie’s daughter Amanda (Juliette Binoche) interrupts her step-father Martin having sex with her mother she becomes concerned that it may not be consensual and reports the situation to the police before starting the process of having her mother admitted to a care facility against her husband’s wishes.
On the subject of the intimacy coach Courtenay conceded it was a novelty, admitting, “I was quite proud,” while Calder-Marshall emphasised that she was “treated very respectfully” and described Odell as “very sweet”.
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| Friends reunited for Queen At Sea: Anna Calder-Marshall and Tom Courtenay Photo: Courtesy of Cameron Allan for EIFF |
Courtenay was instrumental in alerting American director Lance Hammer to the potential of him playing opposite Calder-Marshall. “When the part remained un-cast I looked through the casting list and there was Annie [Calder-Marshall]. Lance had to be careful not be overwhelmed by my enthusiasm,” recalled Courtenay. “Then we both went to see her and a lot of what happened during that visit, ended up in the film.”
The pair shared two Silver Bears for best performances in supporting roles at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year while Hammer scored the Festival’s Silver Bear Jury Prize. Eleven years previously Courtenay had won a best actor award in Berlin for 45 Years opposite Charlotte Rampling.
This year’s recompense and the film’s inclusion in the Edinburgh International Film Festival selection vindicated Hammer’s almost reluctant decision to write the script – his first in 18 years after making an auspicious debut with Ballast in 2008 for which he was named best director at Sundance.
“I am not sure why I was worried but I think the simple answer is ‘fear of death’. And this is what the story is about – ‘death anxiety’. It was hard for me to commit to writing that. I think that on an unconscious level you can live in that space for a long time. The hesitation was based mostly on my own fear of the material,” said Hammer.
No such qualms, however, affected his cast. Calder-Marshall said: “I have studied dementia and actually cared for somebody to the very end. I felt it was important to open the pages of these lives and the injustices and the hardships you have to go through when you are caring for somebody through love. You can end up fighting with carers and doctors who think they are doing their best, but they often end up cross-examining us which can make it very difficult to cope with.”
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| Lance Hammer: 'Having made those choices my role was to stand back and stay out of it' Photo: Courtesy of Berlinale |
On the choice of Binoche to play the daughter Hammer admitted that she is “one of my favourite actresses for the age group that was required. The thing was obviously she is French and originally this was going to be an American story based in New York. So she was not immediately the first person I was thinking of but I kept thinking about her. And I thought I would just to with whoever I thought would make it work best and the location could be changed.
"I sent her the script and she said Yes she would do it. I was relieved because that character carries so much weight of the script. She has to take actions that cause harm to the people around her and she does so out of love for her mother. But she is also living with a moral ambivalence about her and feels guilt for those decisions. There is so much complexity and contradiction in that character.”
Calder-Marshall praised the director for managing “to release the child in me. I felt totally trusted and in the right hands if ever I wasn’t sure what to do, or where exactly to be. And sometimes he let me be nowhere at all”.
Hammer believes that much of directing is about casting. “I chose people whom I wanted to interpret the parts. Having made those choices my role was to stand back and stay out of it.”
The film was workshopped over a period of four weeks. Hammer describes the combo of Courtenay and Calder-Marshall as “fearsome artists who’ll do whatever the scene requires.”
Queen At Sea is released in the UK and Ireland on 18 September through Curzon.
