The Whisperers

Dame Edith Evans received her third Oscar nomination for this splendid performance as the ageing "Mrs. Ross". A lady with a seemingly limited grip on lucidity - frequently claiming to be a countess, or a member of the Order of the Garter - who is expecting her £40,000 inheritance to arrive at any moment, but living in penury/on charity meantime. When her son "Charlie" (Ronald Fraser) turns up expectedly he leaves a package that she discovers a few days later. Can her dreams have come true? She is an honest woman, and when she goes to tell the kindly National Assistance man "Conrad" (Gerald Sim) that she will no longer need their help, she falls in with an unscrupulous woman who takes her for a drink, robs her and with her family leave her lying on the bombed-out road where she is discovered by her upstair neighbours. Hospital then enter her estranged, untrustworthy husband "Archie" (an effective Eric Portman) who cares little for her, pinches from her purse before becoming embroiled with some local gangster types. Bryan Forbes has put together a superb supporting cast - many British household names who deal, abeit tangentially, with not just issues of poverty, criminality and neglect, but of race and colour too. Essentially, though, this is really a tour de force from an accomplished actor very much at the top of her game. Her nuanced and emotive portrayal of this character demonstrates a decency through her dotage; a humanity and kindness that shines through even though her grasp on reality is tenuous at best. The photography is often close-up, and the facial expressions convey that which a thousand words could not. Well worth a watch.