• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Film

Second Coming : Film Review

By Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada What would happen if a middle-class woman in London were pregnant with the second coming of Jesus via immaculate conception? If Debbie Tucker Green’s The Second Coming is to be believed, nothing much. There’d be an argument with the husband, a best friend worrying about her mental condition, and the woman […]

Leslie Byron Pitt by Leslie Byron Pitt
2015-06-11 09:06
in Film, Film Reviews, New Movies
The London Economic

The London Economic

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

By Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada

What would happen if a middle-class woman in London were pregnant with the second coming of Jesus via immaculate conception? If Debbie Tucker Green’s The Second Coming is to be believed, nothing much. There’d be an argument with the husband, a best friend worrying about her mental condition, and the woman in question refusing to talk to anyone about it.

A synopsis, in most cases, does not tell you the whole story of the film, it just presents the setting and the initial problem. Not so here. Even though it is known from the beginning and it’s in the title, it takes up the whole film just to develop this one-sentence storyline: Jackie is pregnant even though she has not slept with her husband or anyone else for years.

Her stubborn refusal to answer any questions results in long scenes of her tetchily repeating “oh you know nothing” or just angrily staring on the table, until the other party, be it her best friend, husband, mother or sister, just gives up. It makes for frustrating watching and certainly tests the audience’s patience. But somehow it does succeed in keeping enough mystery alive to sit through the seemingly endless non-arguments in hope for it all coming together in the end – which it thankfully does.

With the story being told so slowly, it feels more like the portrait of the family at times, brilliantly performed by the three core family members. Idris Elba as the husband, balancing a short temper with a reasonable and loving disposition and increasingly helpless in the face of what looks like his wife’s slow mental breakdown. Despite of them never really talking to each other, the husband-wife dynamic between him and Nadine Marshall, who is the quiet and hostile leading character Jackie, never allowing anyone, including the viewers, to know what she thinks, or to decide whether it’s all in her head or not. But even so, she keeps her character interesting enough to make us want to follow through her development. And finally, their eleven year old son (Kai Francis Lewis) who guesses about the baby and about his mother’s fragile mental state without anyone telling him anything. A bright and sweet boy, more interested in watching birds in the local park than his school homework, and seemingly the only thing in life that can inspire smiles of happiness in both his parents (though rarely at the same time).

The interactions of the three main performers and the clever cinematographic depiction of their daily life balance the frustrating elusiveness of the story itself, and ease the contrast between the mainly hyperrealist domestic scenes and sudden, unexplained and hardly commented scenes of supernatural occurrences like repeated rainstorms in the bathroom.

Nonetheless, this contrast works in favour of the film: The biblical, spiritual or supernatural elements of the story are not explicitly mentioned, but always underlying in very earthly and profane circumstances, adding an interesting tension to otherwise tedious scenes of normality.

RelatedPosts

Give Them Wings Premiers in Darlington

Final Thoughts on Cannes 2022

Cannes 2022 Review: Tori and Lokita

Cannes 2022 Review: Pacifiction

Second Coming is in cinemas now, it was released June 5th. Released on DVD July 6th.

 

 

 

 

 

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending
Abdollah

‘Rescue us’: Afghan teacher begs UK to help him escape Taliban

CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

What If We Got Rid Of Prisons?

More from TLE

JPMorgan Multi-Asset Trust – Long-term return objective of 6% per annum

Jack Monroe’s thread on reality of UK’s cost of living crisis is brutal

Britain ranked as the fourth most micro-business dense country in the world

Brexit-backing Warburtons struggles to recruit lorry drivers

Tribute to “amazing” yachtsman Tony Bullimore who died aged 79 from rare cancer

Thousands of City workers at risk as Deutsche Bank axes 18,000 jobs globally

Rooms in this hotel come with self-parking slippers

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Dangerous extremist or political correctness gone mad?

Guantanamo has Taught the West Nothing

Video – Netting over 100-year-old badger sett at HS2 site to drive animals out of their homes

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.