PC has
been in a number of horror and horror-ish pieces. He’s come up against vampiric snakes and
wolf-boar-rat creatures. House of 9 saw him as a pawn in a Most Dangerous Game-cum-Saw type of psychological torture, and
in Fallen Angel he had a budding
sociopath in his orbit. But The Cloning of Joanna May deals with a
very different sort of horror.
This
two-part TV movie is about Joanna and Carl, two people who can’t get over one
another despite a decade-long divorce.
Joanna’s private eye earns her living tailing Carl, and Carl sees that
Joanna’s lovers meet bad ends.
Infatuation, spite, obsession, and jealousy fester in both of them, and
they’re locked in an endless struggle for power over and ownership of each
other. The latest move is the most disturbing,
the revelation that years ago, Carl stole some of Joanna’s genetic material,
and his three “variations on Joanna” have been quietly coming of age out of
sight.
PC
plays Isaac, the man who originally serves as the catalyst for Joanna and Carl’s
divorce. A nebbish-but-passionate Egyptologist,
Isaac works at a gallery owned by Carl.
He and Joanna form a connection that proves disastrous for both of them.
Isaac is
in every way the anti-Carl. Where Carl
is large and commanding, Isaac is thin and good-tempered. Where Carl is cold, Isaac is tender. Where Carl hoards Joanna as his property,
Isaac cherishes her like a treasure.
The
always-reliable Brian Cox costars as Carl.
Additionally, Ian McNeice (Doctor
Who’s Winston Churchill) has a featured role, as does a young James
Purefoy, who I constantly confuse with James Frain and James D’Arcy but who
made an excellent Tom Bertram in the Frances O’Connor version of Mansfield Park.
Accent Watch
Irish,
but that’s being pretty generous. The
big clue is that he hits the R’s so hard, but it’s not Scottish or West
Country; I sort of wound up at Irish on default.
Recommend?
In
General
– Maybe, if you like dark, psychological stuff.
PC’s not in part 2, but I’ll finish it anyway, to see how it turns out.
PC-wise – Not necessarily. He’s only in a few scenes, and Isaac is very
much a footnote in someone else’s story.
Warnings
Dark
thematic elements, scenes of violence, and sexual content, including sex scenes
and brief nudity.
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