Richard Crouse

IN CONVERSATION WITH… BILL NIGHY : SAT | FEBRUARY 8 | 7:45 PM | THE VIC

Join us for an intimate evening of lively conversation with one of the greatest British actors working today–Bill Nighy. From Love Actually to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to Harry Potter and many, many other notable works, this multi-award winning actor is sure to entertain with his hilarious dry wit and incredible experiences both on and off set. Following the conversation, there will be a special screening of Nighy’s 2019 UK indie hit Hope Gap.

Hope Gap is the heartbreaking and heartwarming tale about the intricacies of the dissolution of a marriage between Edward (Bill Nighy) and Grace (Annette Bening) – and the ensuing emotional fallout their divorce has on their only grown son, Jamie (Josh O’Connor)

Host of In Conversation is Richard Crouse

Richard Crouse is the host of the CTV talk show Pop Life, and the regular film critic for the 24-hour news source, CTV’s News Channel, and CP24. He is also the author of nine books on pop culture history including Who Wrote the Book of Love, and the best-selling The 100 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, and its sequel.  From 1998 to 2008, Crouse was the host of Reel to Real, Canada’s longest-running television show about movies, and is a frequent guest on many national Canadian radio and television programs.

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Here’s a quote about the show from “Times Colonist“:

It has been a big year for the 26th annual event, which opened last week. Among the early highlights was a much-celebrated appearance by Bill Nighy, who attended a festival party on Feb. 7 before sitting for an hour-long chat with critic Richard Crouse in front of a sold-out audience at the Victoria Conference Centre on Feb. 8.

Kay said Nighy’s appearance at the opening gala “was a nice surprise.”

“When he came out on stage [at the conference centre], there was a standing ovation, and the same again when he finished,” Kay said. “People were so excited.”

Hope Gap

Director: William Nicholson

UK  2019  100 min

hopeful + tender + brilliant cast

After 33 years together, Grace and Edward’s marriage is on the rocks. Their blissful, bohemian lifestyle, on the Southern English coastline, has reached a cliff edge. When Edward urges their son Jamie (God’s Own Country’s Josh O’Connor) to return for the weekend only to reveal to all that he’s had enough and his bags are packed, it’s clear that an almighty storm is about to descend.

Hope Gap, Oscar-nominated screenwriter William Nicholson’s second film as director, tracks the unravelling of three lives through stages of shock, disbelief and anger, to a resolution of sorts. Though Jamie attempts to act as a mediator between his parents, his own relationship struggles are a reminder of how silence breeds silence down through the generations, how gaps echo from parents to their children.

Annette Bening gives a barn-storming performance as the acidic and often unreasonable Grace, firing out snappy one-liners whilst undergoing an emotional apocalypse, and Bill Nighy is superb as a quiet, though unacceptably cowardly man, who just wants to update Wikipedia in peace…

Shot with a ravishing sense of design and colour, making the most of the lush English coastline, this is an emotionally astute portrait of a marriage at the end of its life; of regrets uncovered, decisions made too late and the precariousness of hope. But in the end, it is also a story of survival. A story of hope.