“The law can take over your life,” or so it’s teased in the new trailer for DIRECTV and A24’s new film, The Children Act.
In the movie, based on the best-selling 2014 novel by Ian McEwan, Academy Award winner Emma Thompson stars as a London High Court judge, Fiona May (known in court as My Lady), who is faced with a life-changing predicament of deciding whether to give a teenage patient battling leukemia (Dunkirk’s Fionn Whitehead) the right to refuse a blood transfusion that could ultimately save his life. His reasoning: “God has told us it’s wrong.”
“Why is anything wrong? Lying, being unfaithful in your marriage, we just know it in our hearts,” Whitehead’s Adam explains to Thompson’s May.
Torn by deciding whether to abide by law apart from morals, Thompson’s May also endures a dwindling marriage with her American husband, Jack (Stanley Tucci). Soon May must not only reassess the life of a teenage boy, but also her own personal crisis.
Richard Eyre, who helmed films Notes on a Scandal and Iris, directs the film. FilmNation and BBC Films are co-financing the film, which is produced by Duncan Kenworthy (Notting Hill, Love Actually). Executive producers are Glen Basner and Ben Browning from FilmNation, Joe Oppenheimer and Beth Pattinson from BBC Films and Charles Moore. Ben Chaplin, Jason Watkins and Rosie Cavaliero also star.
The Children Act will be exclusively available to screen on DIRECTV August 16 and will hit theaters September 14.
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