Marsh has directed this IRA drama as a series of small gestures and has found in Riseborough an actress knowing how to do more with less. "Shadow Dancer" assumes a familiarity with history and politics of Northern Ireland keeps emotions so tight that it risks seeming inconsequential. The director overplays the symbolism, with Collette wearing a red coat when working for MI5 and a blue coat when back home. On the other hand, he can direct a funeral procession, with the Catholic mourners seething against a wall of British soldiers, so that the cobblestones feel primed to explode. In this world, death is constantly , all the time. As for love the story's so flinty and close-fisted that, ironically, it doesn't linger in the memory. Clive Owen perfect as usual and more at ease playing an English guy.
Review of Shadow Dancer
