Reviewed by Robert Hull
Stars Michelle Williams, Ewan McGregor, Matthew Macfadyen, Nicholas Greaves, Sidney Johnston,
Usman Khokhar, Sasha Behar
Written by Sharon Maguire
Certification UK 15
Runtime 100 minutes
Directed by Sharon Maguire
The story surrounding this film and the novel it is based on is so remarkable that in many respects it dwarfs what is a thought-provoking, engaging tale. Chris Cleave’s book about a terrorist atrocity on a North London football stadium was written in response to the attacks of September 11 and the Madrid train bombings in 2004; it was subsequently published on 7/7 — the day of the London bombings.
Michelle Williams, referred to in the script as Young Mother, brings up her five-year-old boy (Johnston) in a grim tower block that gazes on a beautiful Georgian square. Lenny (Greaves), her husband, works in bomb disposal and is like a ghost to his wife. But father and son are devoted Arsenal supporters and with the stadium on their doorstep, the match offers them precious time together.
On one of Lenny’s many nights away, his wife feels the need for company and visits the local pub. Here, Jasper Black (McGregor), a cocky tabloid journalist, charms and seduces her. When Saturday’s match comes around Mum waves her "boys" off but is soon eager for the attentiveness of Black. The two are making love when a bomb explodes at the stadium and their lives change forever. The mother grieves for her son, though grief is mixed with guilt and then denial. She finds comfort in a relationship with Lenny’s boss, Terence Butcher (Macfayden), but Black, in covering the story for his paper, discovers a plot even bigger than the attack itself.
Williams offers a performance of overflowing emotions, while Macfayden is dry but full of humanity. Both are undermined by one cringe-inducing moment, poor special effects and a terrible plot detail. When the bomb blast hits, Jasper is literally ‘going off’ inside his lover – Hitchcock might have appreciated the innuendo but he didn’t make this kind of movie — and it seriously devalues a key moment. This is followed by special effects, during the bomb blast, that are so unconvincing it is akin to watching early Star Trek. And while it might have seemed like a good storyboard idea, the sight of huge (CGI) barrage balloons featuring photographs of the bomb victims floating around the skyline is just ludicrous.
From this assembly of aggravations you would think it would be easy to dismiss Incendiary but somehow it still semi-succeeds. Though the terror attack lies at the heart of the plot, around it grows a film that evocatively shows a mother’s love, how relationships ebb and flow, and how a city like London, evolves, changes and reshapes itself time after time.