The micro-budget thriller follows a politically charged affair between a British woman and an Algerian student
by Stephen Dalton | April 9, 2013 | Hollywood Reporter
A love story colored by the paranoid political climate of the War on Terror, this micro-budget British thriller was shot by first-time feature director Katarzyna Klimkiewicz for around $500,000. Helen McCrory, of Skyfall and Harry Potter fame, leads a mostly unknown cast in a noir-ish suspense yarn with potential appeal to Homeland fans. Opening in British theaters this week, this BBC-backed co-production has a small-screen feel. In overseas markets, TV seems the most likely launch platform, though a beefed-up Hollywood remake is not out of the question.
McCrory plays Frankie, a forty-something college lecturer and high-flying aeronautics expert based in the southwestern English city of Bristol. In the middle of designing the next generation of military drone aircraft, she meets handsome young French-Algerian student Kahil (Najib Oudghiri). Though he is half her age, there is clear sexual chemistry between them. Crossing barriers of age, class, race and culture, their initially hesitant attraction soon blossoms into a highly charged affair, with a frisson of S&M and plenty of spontaneous rough sex in rain-slicked public alleyways.
