New Cardiff: Film tie-in by Charles Webb
Seductive, funny and poignant, with a mesmerizing fairy-tale quality, NEW CARDIFF begins with a broken heart - Colin's. He and Vera had first met when they kicked together as their pregnant mothers sat next to each other in the doctor's waiting room. They became like Siamese twins. They had great sex, they were getting married - until Vera sent Colin an invitation to her marriage to someone else. Colin escapes to the New World to heal himself, but almost immediately the new work takes a hand. In New Cardiff he finds an innocence, a simplicity, a warmth, an eccentricity and a directness that seduces and transforms him. Mandy, his new lover, finds the perfect subjects for portraits without even being interested, the force is with her. So when Vera arrives to explain it had all been a joke she finds a very different Colin. Written largely in dialogue NEW CARDIFF is a paeon to oust the cynicism of the adult in favour of the simplicity of the child. To be called HOPE SPRINGS, the film stars Colin Firth, Minnie Driver and Heather Graham. An enchantingly written fable to teach us how to start again.