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JANICE BEARD Send This Review to a Friend
There's charm aplenty in the early part of "Janice Beard," a whimsical story from Britain about an unusual Scottish woman told with an offbeat sensibility. You have to be amused when humor can be found in the sudden death of her father as Janice is born and her mother is left with agoraphobia at the shock of it all. Janice grows up adept at creating fantasies, and it is amusing to follow her for a while, particularly since she is played winningly by Eileen Walsh, an actress easy to like in the role.
But the film, directed by Claire Kilner and co-written by Kilner and Ben Hopkins, takes a downward slide when oddball Janice becomes embroiled in the machinations that take place in the car manufacturing company for which she works. The plot involves an effort to sabotage the introduction of a new automobile, a gambit carried out by the office boy Sean, with whom Janice becomes involved. He's doing the dirty work for a rival firm.
It helps somewhat that Sean is being played by Rhys Ifans, who was so good in "Notting Hill" and has an even better role in "Human Nature." Patsy Kensit is also a help playing Julia, Janice's boss, as is Sandra Voe as Janice's mother. The hubbub over the industrial shenanigans gets to be too silly and labored. Then there is the relationship between Janet and her mother to be worked out.
"Janice Beard" is one of those kooky films that has its pleasures but also becomes wearing as it gets overly embroiled in plot and its self-conscious effort to be a bit daft. An Empire Pictures release.
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