Emma Thompson‘s British legal drama The Children Act is set to leave a UK streaming service in the coming days.
Based on Ian McEwan’s 2014 novel of the same name, the film stars Thompson as a High Court judge who is given a case where doctors want to perform a blood transfusion on a 17-year-old Jehovah’s Witness (Fionn Whitehead).
The synopsis reads: “Judge Fiona May must race against the clock to determine the fate of a teenage boy in need of a lifesaving blood transfusion, stretching her life and her fractured marriage to breaking point.”
The legal drama is scheduled to leave BBC iPlayer on Thursday, meaning fans of Thompson have just days left to stream the film for free in the UK.
Released in 2017, the film currently has a respectable score of 74% on Rotten Tomatoes from 112 critic reviews, with critics praising Thompson’s lead performance.
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Vulture described the drama as “compelling” adding: “No one gives better pensive gaze here than Thompson; the drama lies in the fallibility of even the most competent and well-intentioned among us.”
“The Children Act feels utterly of a piece with the original book: urbane, understated, handsomely realized and impeccably interpreted by a cast of superb actors,” wrote The Washington Post.
“This film adaptation never reaches the intimate heights of Ian McEwan’s novel,” penned Rolling Stone. “But Emma Thompson’s portrait of a family court judge who lets the world in at the cost of losing her own judgment is acting of the highest order.”
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The Observer penned: “Equally comfortable on both stage and screen, Emma Thompson brings an added value to the mix that literally saves the film and keeps the viewer awake.”
“Another reminder, if one were needed, of the subtlety and skill of Emma Thompson’s stratospheric talent,” said Empire Magazine.
However, not everyone agreed with this take, with The Boston Globe writing: “The Children Act isn’t all that interesting a movie, despite the many talented people involved and the generally high level of work they do.”
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Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.