Londonium
| Film Facts | |||
| Plot Summary | |||
| General Comments | |||
| Trivia |
As this film project is not even
completed, what you will find here is information from the production company.
I would like to thank Karen for kindly sharing her Londonium material with
the Roles Pages. More information and pictures will be added as they become
available.
Photos courtesy of Karen and
the Spring.
Film Facts
 |
Colin’s Character: Allen Portland Other Cast: Mike Binder (Ben Green), Mariel Hemingway (Carly Matthews-Portland), Irene Jacob (Fiona Delgrazio), Stephen Fry, Jack Dee, Steven Markus, and Christopher Lawford. Directed by: Mike Binder Producer: Jack Binder Screenplay: Mike Binder Director of Photography: Sue Gibson Editor: Chris Baird Production Designer: Martyn John Release Date: Fall 2000 Genre: Romantic comedy |
Plot Summary
A
contemporary comedy about love, marriage, commitment and sex. The
storyline revolves around Ben Green (Mike Binder), an American sitcom writer
who is hired to invigorate a British hit television show. He becomes
hopelessly obsessed by the program’s star, Carly (Mariel Hemingway).
Carly
is a charismatic and self-absorbed American actress whose faded Hollywood
career has been rejuvenated by her highly successful English comedy series.
She is married to Allen (Colin), a very proper London-born producer whose
frustration drives him to the local pub.
Irene Jacob appears as Fiona, Carly’s French make-up artist with literary aspirations who becomes romantically linked with Ben.
Stephen Fry plays an uptight psychiatrist
who has handled a number of labor relations cases for Allen.
General Comments
The first rough cut of Londinium
was screened October 21 by a select few. The movie was pronounced
very good. Running a bit too long, it will undergo some fine tuning
and trimming.
Colin’s performance was deemed “absolutely
magnificent” and “subtle and nuanced.” In the role of Allen, a very
cultured and thoughtful character, Colin is simultaneously “strong and
acerbic and yet undergoes a tender transformation that is thoroughly believable.
He also looks every inch a matinee idol.”
Allen is not keen on his wife's insistence
on seeing a psychiatrist to discuss their flagging sex life, so he recommends
Stephen Fry, who is wonderfully and hilariously uncomfortable discussing
the topic of-- s-e-x. The scenes are few, but choice, and the two
play very well off each other.
Trivia
· Irene Jacob also starred
with Colin in My Life So Far.
· Filmed entirely in and around London, the movie features such locations as the Serpentine waterway in Hyde Park, the South Bank arts complex overlooking the Thames, Regent’s Park, Waterloo Station and the British Museum. But, according to Binder’s interview in the LA Times, his enthusiasm for filming on location was only moderately marred by a few complaints: “There’s the traffic. One minute it’s sunny, one minute it’s cloudy, so nothing matches. There’s always planes overhead. One day 50,000 Kurdish demonstrators are marching and half the city’s blocked off. We encountered the world’s largest gay [pride] parade. The day we shot at the South Bank, a guy jumps off Waterloo Bridge and commits suicide, so the place is swarming with helicopters and boats and we can’t shoot.”
Distribution Plans: This will occur after a finished version is screened
for distributors. The producers also believe the film should be released
in the fall and have targeted the Toronto Film Festival, as a possible
launch pad.
(Note: The Toronto selection process does not begin until March/April.)