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A Song for Jenny

A Song for Jenny (2015)

July. 05,2015
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7
| Drama

A Song For Jenny is the true story of Julie Nicholson's response to her daughter Jenny’s murder in the July 7th bombing at Edgware Road tube station. Starring Emily Watson as Julie, A Song For Jenny details the dramatic and profound impact of violence on one woman and a family.

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Reviews

Konterr
2015/07/05

Brilliant and touching

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Kidskycom
2015/07/06

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

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Humbersi
2015/07/07

The first must-see film of the year.

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Kamila Bell
2015/07/08

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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ianlouisiana
2015/07/09

An uncomfortable film because it should have been half an hour shorter and less like a wildly distorted version of "Outnumbered".Miss E.Watson had the impossible task of portraying the Rev.Julie Nicholson whose daughter was murdered by one of the London bombers(the one whose father thinks was innocent and presumably had his bomb planted on him). Fine performance though it is,Miss Watson is unable to prevent her character from being almost saintly due to the way the story is written,and her family has disturbing echoes of so many others that inhabit TV dramaland. Grumpy but loving grandparents,nice but ineffectual husband,bright, happy and clever kids. Only Mr J. Woodvine as Mrs Nicholson's father displayed any human characteristics. Not surprisingly perhaps,her daughter's death caused a crisis of faith in Mrs Nicholson but she still apparently parroted the rhetoric of the Church even in extremis. Conspicuously not referred to was Mrs Nicholson's abandonment of the Anglican Church - for which she could hardly be blamed. There are no easy answers for her - indeed she didn't seem to be looking for any answers of any description. Nobody had anything nasty to say about the bombers' religion - which was remarkably tolerant of them in the circumstances. Quite what Mrs Nicholson's God was up to at the time is something she hasn't yet come to terms with. All in all,"A song for Jenny" was a respectful "tribute" - if that's the word - to innocent victims of terrorism that,despite an intense and moving lead performance was strangely uninvolving and,as such,rather a disappointment.

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Prismark10
2015/07/10

A song for Jenny is based on Julie Nicholson's book about the death of her daughter in the Edgware Road bombing in July 7 2005. This drama commemorates the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 attacks in London.The drama is overwrought, distressing as we see the Nicholson family at first waiting for news of the fate of their daughter, hopes that she may be alive slowly vanishing as the days go on. Then there is the harrowing aftermath once her body is identified and making the preparations for the funeral while feeling anger for those responsible for the bombings.Emily Watson gives a stoic performance and brings nuances to her character which shows her skills as an actress because I think the script was flawed which affected the drama. It lacked a time and place of the setting to give it some context.I remember driving to walk on the 7 July, 24 hours earlier London had been awarded the Olympics by what seemed like a narrow margin. I was listening to the radio where sport stars were being interviewed of Britain holding the Olympics which was cut short as reports came in of power outages in the underground network and it slowly dawned that this was a terrorist incident. Jubilation turned into horror.Then there were the wars Britain were fighting in the Middle East, in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Iraq war was divisive from the beginning and its repercussions are still being felt now something the film kind of ignored, given that this was a motive for the bombers however misguided. Terrorist attacks in the UK is not new in my lifetime. I grew up in an era of IRA bombings in the mainland. Dramas relating to Irish terrorism on British television went from how evil these people are to more neutral tones to even injustices committed to the republican communities such as wrongly convicted bombers. These things might not be in the book but the context was lacking which hurt the drama.Jenny's father is absent from key parts of the events. I later found out that this was the same in the book, I just felt it was all part to keep Emily Watson centre stage. The drama should had dealt with this aspect better as well.So a flawed drama which I felt was lacking in a stronger story which pains me given the tragic events of this true poignant story.Julie Nicholson has since left the priesthood as she could not forgive the bombers and felt that this was incompatible with her vocation as a priest. She has also divorced her husband.

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Adams5905
2015/07/11

To be honest, I struggled to get through this. I watched it almost out of a sense of duty, as I was a distant acquaintance of one of the victims of 7/7 (not Jenny Nicholson). The BBC usually handles this sort of thing rather well (they certainly assembled a decent cast), but not in this case. The whole thing was ponderous and ham-fisted, full of pregnant pauses and awkward silences (this is what passes for dramatic tension in our modern world). The lead character came out with portentous statements such as "these are my daughter's Stations of the Cross-I'm her mother-I shall be with her to the end", and "she didn't hate-nor must I", which hardly reconciled with her frustration with the authorities, and anger towards her daughter's murderer...There was little in the way of character development, yet new additions were introduced all the time, leaving the audience to guess their relationship to the (not yet confirmed) deceased, and nothing to indicate the crisis of faith that the main character faced (she has since resigned her position as a C of E Parish Priest) in coming to terms with her dichotomy of conscience: her anger directed towards Mohammad Sidique Khan, the suicide bomber responsible for her daughter's death, and her duty of care and forgiveness as a priest.The whole ensemble felt rushed, yet strangely drawn-out and impotent-it should have been explored in greater detail over a two-hour slot (after ten years, surely the BBC could have afforded to dedicate two hours on a Sunday night to the memory of these victims) instead of eighty minutes, and perhaps allocated some decent writers to the project-it felt like I was watching a screenplay written by pre-teens-they know they want to express the emotions of loss, anger, grief and resentment, but they don't really know how to it... I give it 6/10, with an exhortation to try harder next time!..

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Diane Ruth
2015/07/12

For Emily Watson, this would be the performance of a lifetime, if she had not already given audiences such performances time after time. Her overwhelming brilliance has come to be routine and expected in every project in which she participates. That being said, this is simply an astounding portrait of a woman devastated by the senseless murder of her daughter by terrorists. Watson does not simply bring the emotional turmoil, the soul wrenching pain of a Anglican Vicar tested beyond the limits of faith, to vivid life. Somehow she makes the viewer share that agony and make it their own. It is one of the most deeply moving performances ever filmed and while the film is incredibly painful to watch, it is also an important cinematic memorial to those who suffered and lost so much on 7/7. This is more than a great actor doing her usual astounding work. This is a performance of historic proportions, so powerful and majestic that it can never be forgotten. A beautiful accomplishment by everyone involved in this staggering production and nothing less than a superbly delivered tribute to the broken hearted survivors of that tragic day by the amazingly gifted Ms. Emily Watson. She is the heart, the soul, and the very essence of A Song For Jenny.

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