National Theatre live
E, 111 minutes
4 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
A cracking script and skilful, creative direction combine in this new production bringing theatre to the big screen. It features a sensational central performance.
As a filmed play, Inter Alia doesn’t conform to the definition of a motion picture or movie. The proscenium arch does cramp the camera, but this production has other key attributes of cinema at its best. In essence, a dense, thoughtful and provocative script brought to life by actors who understand how their words will resonate with the lives of the people who are sitting in the auditorium.
Having finished its run on stage in London a few weeks ago, this drama about one woman’s struggle to balance being a mother, a wife and a crown court judge is one of the best things going on the big screen right now. It is the work of Australian expat creatives, playwright Suzie Miller and director Justin Martin, the team behind Prima Facie.
Their previous production with Jodie Comer as a barrister dealing with sexual assault was a global hit. It is now being made into a feature film with local company Bunya Productions at the helm.
Another drama concerning a woman in the legal profession, Inter Alia is kinetic from the word go. Judge Jessica Parks first appears in wig and gown, holding a mike, strutting her stuff like a rock god as a drummer and a guitarist play in the background. Jessica sets the scene by recalling moments when counsel bullied or put a witness down, or showed disrespect to her own position.
It turns into a stunning and exacting performance from Pike as a barrister turned judge. A woman concerned that in being expert at juggling her roles she may be master of none. Her career takes place inter alia, she says, operating in the cracks of the other highly demanding roles of her life.
A dense, provocative script and stunning central performance might not just resonate with audiences, it might shake them to their core
An illuminated crest with lion and unicorn on high helps distinguish scenes in court from those at the family home she shares with Michael (Jamie Glover) and their son Harry (Jasper Talbot). Whether at the office or at home, behind her neutral legal face the mind of Judge Parks is a bubbling stew. Preoccupied by the case in front of her or by ruminations on her legal experience more broadly, or with catering for her dinner party guests or guiding her teenage son through the pitfalls of teenage life.
Judge Parks is the contemporary woman par excellence, a professional person who wears wig and gown at work, yet does more than her fair share at home. The pair of bright yellow rubber gloves Jessica wears in the kitchen seem to say it all. Women will relate to the issues of multi-tasking and the imbalance of domestic responsibilities that are raised so effectively here.
In Prima Facie, the drama involved a young barrister specialising in the defence of men charged with sexual assault, who was a victim of sexual assault herself. How was she to proceed professionally in the face of such collegiate betrayal? Similarly in Inter Alia, a sudden riveting revelation involving Jessica’s own family intrudes into the praxis of law by the book.
Inter Alia is not a one-woman play like Miller’s last work, but the main character certainly dominates, leaving less space for others. This intensity is leavened from time to time, and some of the best scenes involve all three characters speaking for themselves.
Ultimately it is absolutely Pike’s turn here, in a return to the stage after a long absence during which she was making her mark in films like the wicked black comedy Saltburn and the unsettling psychological thriller Gone Girl. Those were roles in which her character was difficult to read, glacial and ambiguous, but here she is as open as a book, leaving us shaken to the core.
Also published at Rotten Tomatoes