''Hampstead'' is a 2017 British

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Joel Hopkins and written by Robert Festinger. It is based on the life of Harry Hallowes who successfully claimed ownership of a half-acre plot of Hampstead Heath. The film stars

Diane Keaton Diane Keaton (''née'' Hall, born January 5, 1946) is an American actress and director. She has received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Glo ...

Brendan Gleeson Brendan Gleeson (born 29 March 1955) is an Irish actor and film director. He is the recipient of three IFTA Awards, two British Independent Film Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award and has been nominated twice for a BAFTA Award and four times fo ...

, James Norton,

Lesley Manville Lesley Ann Manville (born 12 March 1956) is an English actress known for her frequent collaborations with Mike Leigh, appearing in the films '' Grown-Ups'' (1980), '' High Hopes'' (1988), '' Secrets & Lies'' (1996), ''Topsy-Turvy'' (1999), ''A ...

Jason Watkins Jason Watkins (born 28 October 1962) is an English stage, film and television actor. He played the lead role in the two-part drama ''The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies'', for which he won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor. He has also ...

, Hugh Skinner, and

Simon Callow Simon Phillip Hugh Callow (born 15 June 1949) is an English film, television and voice actor, director, narrator and writer. He was twice nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his roles in ''A Room with a View'' (19 ...

. The film was released on 23 June 2017, by

Entertainment One Films Entertainment One Ltd., trading as eOne, is an American-owned Canadian multinational entertainment company. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the company is primarily involved in the acquisition, distribution, and production of films and television s ...

Cast

Production

The story is based upon the real life events surrounding Harry Hallowes who first squatted on the site in 1987 after being evicted from his council flat in Highgate. Hallowes, who died aged 88 in 2016, battled for the legal rights to own the land on which he had built his shelter arguing that he had gained ownership by

adverse possession Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle in the Anglo-American common law under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property—usually land ( real property)—ma ...

. He was eventually awarded title to . On 20 October 2015

and

joined the cast of the film. On 13 May 2016

, James Norton,

, and

joined the cast of the film.

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

began on 22 May 2016.

Release

The film was released on 23 June 2017 by

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 43% based on 60 reviews, with an average rating of 5.01/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "''Hampstead'' plays matchmaker with a pair of talented veterans, but the sum of their efforts isn't enough to overcome a deeply mediocre story." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 53 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * {{Joel Hopkins 2017 films 2017 comedy-drama films British comedy-drama films Films scored by Stephen Warbeck Films set in London Films about old age British films based on actual events Squatting in film 2010s English-language films 2010s British films