Captives movie storyline. A beautiful young dentist (Ormond) working in a tough British prison starts to become attracted to a violent inmate (Roth) after the break-up of her marriage, and embarks upon an illicit affair with him, with terrible consequences for all.
Captives is a 1994 British romantic crime drama film directed by Angela Pope and written by Dublin screenwriter Frank Deasy. It stars Julia Ormond, Tim Roth and Keith Allen. The picture was selected as the opening film in the Venetian Nights section of the 1994 Venice Film Festival, in addition to its selection for Gala Presentation at the 1994 Toronto International Film Festival.
Film Review for Captives
ntil it skids into clanking melodrama, “Captives” is a dank, intriguing study of passion under pressure. The movie, directed by Angela Pope, yanks Julia Ormond off the perfect-woman pedestal on which she perched through “Legends of the Fall” and “Sabrina” to engage in some down-and-dirty thrashing around with Tim Roth.
Their big love scene is a frantic coupling in a toilet stall in the ladies’ room of a London prison where Roth’s character, Philip Chaney, is serving a 10-year sentence. Ms. Ormond’s character, Rachael Clifford, is the institution’s part-time dentist, who changes her hair style and poses as a visitor in order to see him.
The lovers risk a great deal to carry on a secret affair that is depicted in Frank Deasy’s screenplay as an obsessive power struggle with sadomasochistic undercurrents. Rachael, who is in the process of divorcing her unfaithful husband, puts all of her bottled-up rage into a relationship that if discovered would cost her her job. Philip, who hasn’t had a visitor in five years, brings a famished, avid desire colored with his own bitter memories of infidelity.
From the moment they lay eyes on each other, Ms. Ormond and Roth strike some dangerous sparks. Both actors give taut, convincing performances, but the movie belongs to Roth, who exudes an eerie, watchful stillness.
Before “Captives,” the dental profession in movies was more likely to be associated with torture than with love. “Captives” gives dentistry a slightly comical erotic frisson as a routine oral examination turns into furtive, finger-to-mouth foreplay with intense eye contact.
When the movie deals directly with the lovers and their passion, it becomes a disturbing psychological exploration of an attraction that feeds on difficulty and conflict. “Captives” uses the situation to pose some ticklish questions about the dynamics of erotic obsession.
What is this upper-middle-class woman, who doesn’t seem to have any sociopolitical agenda, doing working in a men’s prison? And why would she so readily succumb to the advances of a criminal about whom she knows next to nothing? It is only after they consummate their love that Rachael learns of Philip’s crime, and her discovery is not an encouraging one.
As besotted as Philip seems when he’s with Rachael, the movie pointedly shows another, darker side of him. When menaced by other prisoners, he responds with a practiced brutality that is as vicious as it is casually dispensed. But when the lovers are together, his anger spills over only once. He accuses Rachael of using him for her own pleasure, and under the circumstances his suspicions seem not entirely groundless.
The drama unfolds in an atmosphere of depression and paranoia. News reports of London bombings punctuate the film, and the city looks rain-soaked and exhausted. An air of compressed terror grips the prison scenes in which Philip’s fellow inmates stalk around as wild-eyed demons.
One, who imagines he is Elvis Presley, ogles Rachael with a blood-chilling rapacity. Even scarier is the prison’s resident crack dealer (Colin Salmon), a ferret-eyed killer whose discovery of the affair wrenches the movie off its singular track in a more conventional direction. “Captives” should have stayed in the romantic twilight zone where it started out.
Captives (1996)
Directed by: Angela Pope
Starring: Julia Ormond, Tim Roth, Keith Allen, Siobhan Redmond, Peter Capaldi, Colin Salmon, Annette Badland, Jeff Nuttall, Kenneth Cope, Christina Collingridge
Screenplay by: Frank Deasy
Production Design by: Stuart Walker
Cinematography by: Remi Adefarasin
Film Editing by: Dave King
Costume Design by: Odile Dicks-Mireaux
Art Direction by: Diane Dancklefsen
Music by: Colin Towns
MPAA Rating: R for a strong sex scene, and for language and some violence.
Distributed by: Miramax Films
Release Date: May 3, 1996
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