My Life so Far

Director Hugh Hudson, who made his directorial debut with the award-winning Chariots Of Fire, returns to the theme of British life in the 1920s in the bittersweet family drama My Life So Far. Gamma Macintosh (Rosemary Harris) is the matriarch of a family that inhabits Harewood House, a castle in the Scottish Highlands. Besides Gamma, the adult heads of the household are her daughter, Moira (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and Moira's husband Edward Pettigrew (Colin Firth), a mildly eccentric inventor who tinkers with experimental automobiles and airplanes. Moira and Edward have two children, son Fraser (Robbie Norman) and daughter Elspeth (Kelly Macdonald). One day Moira's brother Morris (Malcolm McDowell) stops by with his fiancée, a French woman named Heloise (Irene Jacob), whose beauty and sophistication turns Edward's head and stirs new emotions in young Fraser. Filmed in 1997, My Life So Far remained in the editing room until 1999, when it was shown in a special benefit screening at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. — Mark Deming