Alicia I love this movie so much

CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

rbrb BBC Entertainment cable channel lauded the presentation of this show recently so with some anticipation I viewed it. What a big mistake and what a waste of time. To borrow from just a few of the other reviewers here "pointless self indulgent" drivel. The story is all over the place and the writer appears to be making it up as he goes along. Apart from the daughter the two main characters come across as selfish uninteresting individuals who look and portray themselves as old: very old which in fact they are not.The story in brief:A father is obsessed with what he believes to be his "love" for his daughter, and meets a woman who has lost a child in a road accident and can't get over it. The father and the woman have an exceedingly boring love affair. Thats' it.Add all sorts of unnecessary pretentious and phony sub plots. Beyond belief that this film won some awards. Proves can fool some of the people all of the time.Lucky to get:2/10.

noralee "Gideon's Daughter" brings to a TV film a trend that is mostly obvious in literary fiction – the middle-aged man who thinks he is the center of the universe and the whole world revolves around him, and faces some kind of break down if any of his women show a bit of independence.Written and directed by playwright Stephen Poliakoff, he mines similar territory as Cheever, Updike, Ford, Amis, Roth, etc. thrust into the center of English celebrity and political culture. The theme is even awkwardly made redundant by an odd structure of having another middle-aged man tell the tale to another pretty young woman and a mysterious kid.Here, Bill Nighy's media consultant only perceives such events as Princess Diana's death or the upcoming millennium in terms of how it affects him. In press interviews, Nighy has said that Poliakoff intentionally directed him to play the main character as "stripped" but one certainly doesn't see how this catatonic schmoozer even got to his professional pinnacle. His past and current sexual adventures certainly seem more male fantasy than anything based on his charisma of any kind.Tom Hardy, who was quite captivating as Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in the recent Queen Elizabeth I mini-series, shows much more suitable feistiness, as a cross between Jeremy Piven's agent in "Entourage" and Bradley Whitford's canny adviser in "The West Wing."Miranda Richardson has the stereotyped role we've seen many times before of the quirky stranger (she dresses like an old hippie) from another class and lifestyle, but with a pained past with a child, who tempts him to play hooky and more. It is startlingly different for this genre that she is close to age appropriate.A creepy centerpiece, and repeating motif, is the consultant's daughter (Emily Blunt getting to show little of the passion she displayed in "My Summer of Love") singing a lovely ballad in tribute to philanderer Georges Simenon's suicidal daughter. The story is particularly weakened by not seeing more of Blunt's life when she's not being the adoring daughter.I really didn't get that a neglectful father who suddenly discovers he has paternal feelings is then to be considered "obsessive" rather than finally normal, even as she's about to leave the nest. His growing realization of his feelings is the best part of the film but a theme that all parents and grown children need to reconcile as adults-to-adults just drifts off.

missmarmite This is definitely not a film for everyone. But I was eager to see it and happy to get it on DVD, as I live outside the UK and don't get the BBC. Bill Nighy, Miranda Richardson and Robert Lindsay together in one film is must, no matter what the film might be about.This is a slow film, things happen almost in "real time", and the characters are very realistic. I work in a shop in a big train station, I get to see the most different people every day. People like Gideon or Stella do exist, and why not make a film about characters like them? The most beautiful or rather endearing scene, enchanting maybe even, was when Stella and Gideon lie next to each other in Stella's bed and talk about their lives and loved ones. A very quiet scene, and endlessly touching to watch.Someone else said here, people probably have to be quite creative to understand this film. This might be true. You have to let go of conventional films a bit to be able to embrace this one. But if you're open enough to new impressions, then this is the right film for you. Or if you just want to see excellent performances by aforementioned actors.

KatieScarlettButler I saw this and thought it would be excellent as I am a great fan of Miranda Richardson, Bill Nighy and Stephen Poliakoff, and contrary to the total slating some people have given it, I thought it was great! The only thing is, I reckon you have to be ready to look deeply into what is actually happening because I (being a drama/English Lit student) thought it was brilliant, but my less creative friends thought it was dull. So you have to be kind of out there, looking deeper into the relationships formed and how the dynamics work blah blah. Excellent performances by Nighy and Richardson (goes without saying - the "video camera" scene in the car is really natural!)and some beautiful cinematography. Gideon's Daughter is a complete contrast to the also excellent The Lost Prince, another Poliakoff/Richardson formula which was probably more successful because it was on a "real" level.