''Between Two Women'' is a 2000

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

film by

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

writer-director

Steven Woodcock Steven Woodcock (born 23 February 1964) is an English actor, best known for his role as Clyde Tavernier in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''; a role that he played from July 1990 to July 1993. Other television credits include ''Grange Hill'' ( ...

. It tells the story of Ellen, a factory worker's wife trapped in an unhappy marriage amidst the grime and industrial noise of northern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Plot

Working class Ellen (

Barbara Marten Barbara Marten (born 3 January 1947) is a British actress. She is most known for playing Eve Montgomery in ''Casualty''. She has appeared in various soaps, including Eastenders and Brookside, as well as many other drama serials such as ''Harry' ...

) makes friends with her young son's middle-class schoolteacher, Kathy, also known as Miss Thompson ( Andrina Carroll). As the two bond over Ellen's son's Victor's outstanding talent for drawing, a relationship blossoms between the two women. Ellen's husband constantly criticises Ellen and Victor, and their relationship is shown to be hostile and abusive. Ellen's husband, a mill worker, is unable to see the value of the art Victor creates, and is distrustful of his wife. He is also hurt and embarrassed when a piece of Victor's work sells for almost as much as he earns from his monthly wage. Ultimately, with no warning, Kathy moves away - but writes to Ellen. They meet, and admit their feelings for one another. By the end of the film, Ellen's relationship with her husband has completely failed and he has moved out of the family home. Calmer than he had been, he states that she is still his wife and he will still come home to visit. Later, Ellen takes a train with Victor to meet Kathy, implying hope for the future.

Cast

Style

The stifling social conventions of the 1950s are at the root of the movie's

poetic Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...

and very understated style. In the

DVD documentary A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

''The Making of Between Two Women'' (only on UK DVD) Steven Woodcock says that Miss Thompson was originally intended to be a man but he couldn't get the story to work. He claims not to have based the story of the two women on anything that happened to him in real life but that it came as a flash of inspiration when he woke up one morning. The movie is in the tradition of the British northern-set

kitchen sink drama Kitchen sink realism (or kitchen sink drama) is a British cultural movement that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose protagonists usually could be described as "angry young men" w ...

and is a homage to the

British New Wave The British New Wave is a style of films released in Great Britain between 1959 and 1963. The label is a translation of '' Nouvelle Vague'', the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others. Styli ...

of the late 1950s and early 1960s, being filmed in the same naturalistic way, drawing on

Cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ; "truthful cinema") is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about Kino-Pravda. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or high ...

and using entirely real locations. The main difference is that the theme of a lesbian relationship across the class divide in a gritty working class setting would have been unlikely to be acceptable in the 50s.

Background and production

The movie was shot mostly in and around

Huddersfield Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence into ...

and

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

during the summer and autumn of 1999. The film won Best Feature Film Award at the

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-backed

New York Lesbian & Gay Film Festival NewFest: The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival put on by The New Festival, Inc., is one of the most comprehensive forums of national and international LGBT film/video in the world. Founded in 1988, The New Festival, Inc ...

soon after release.British Council website cataloguing British film directors. It has been screened in

at the

Directors Guild of America The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is an entertainment guild that represents the interests of film and television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad. Founded as the Screen Directors Guild in 1936, the group merge ...

. It has been shown on British TV more than 250 times. Despite a British setting and cast, the film was released on DVD by

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before the UK, to some good reviews in ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' and the ''

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''.

US vs UK versions

The Region 2 UK version (79 mins) is shorter than the Region 1 US version (93 mins) and is the preferred version of the director. The UK version also contains the behind-the-scenes documentaries, giving nearly an hour of extras with the trailer. The second documentary on the UK DVD is about deleted scenes and in it Woodcock explains why he remastered the movie in 2005 and cut it back by about 15 minutes for the 2006 British release. He advises he thought these scenes of interaction between the two women worked in the novel but slowed the story down on screen.DVD documentary ''Between Two Women: Deleted Scenes''. (Oddyssey Video. 2006.) The documentary also shows complete scenes and parts of scenes that were filmed but not included in either the US or UK versions of the movie. Ellen's son Victor was played by Edward Woodcock, the director's son in real life.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0319056 * http://film.britishcouncil.org/between-two-women 2000 films British drama films 2000s English-language films Films set in Yorkshire Films set in 1957 Lesbian-related films 2000 drama films 2000 LGBT-related films British LGBT-related films LGBT-related drama films 2000s British films