Ordinary Love

Although his electrifying action roles made him a global icon, Liam Neeson never stopped making the potent dramas that first brought him to notice. And though Lesley Manville won a whole new audience with her scissor-sharp performance in Phantom Thread, her work with Mike Leigh long ago proved the depth of her abilities on screen. Ordinary Love brings these two master actors together for the first time as their characters navigate one of the most high-stakes gambits imaginable: marriage. Joan (Manville) and Tom (Neeson) are a long-married couple, with their set habits, cozy bickering, and assumption of a long walk together into the sunset. But when Joan discovers a lump in her breast, it soon becomes clear that cancer will radically change each of them and their relationship. As she enters the cold, uncertain process of medical treatment, their habits are ruptured, and that cozy bickering explodes to reveal the long-buried truths of their marriage.

Working from Owen McCafferty's wise, observant screenplay, directors Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn (Good Vibrations) show the heartbreak that comes with what Joan and Tom must go through, and they do so with clarity and tenderness. Manville's Joan is a mature woman who has made her accommodations with life, but is unprepared to face this potentially terminal illness. Neeson plays Tom as a man more comfortable showing rather than speaking his love. Their big date during her treatment, and one simple scene where Tom cuts Joan's hair, illuminate the depth of love that unites this couple, even as they face the ultimate test.

CAMERON BAILEY