Films about the Irish troubles may have limited appeal at the box-office but James Marsh's Shadow Dancer deserves to break through prejudices more than most. It is as much a psychological thriller as a political argument.
The shadow dancer in question is Colette (Andrea Riseborough), a single mother and active IRA member arrested in London after an abortive bombing mission. She has been shadowed by Clive Owen's Mac, a driven M15 officer who knows all about her and tells her that the basis of her radicalism may, in fact, be false.
As a young girl (played by Maria Laird) she had sent her little brother to fetch cigarettes only to find him killed by crossfire. She is convinced that a British bullet hit him but Mac proves, with photographic evidence, that it was a stray IRA bullet. Whatever the truth, she has felt guilty all her life.
Marsh, who made the notable documentaries Man on Wire and Project Nim, handles his material with quiet distinction, avoiding melodrama throughout. He is aided by another excellent performance from Riseborough as a very ordinary woman mixed up in a struggle she barely understands. Owen too is excellent, giving an intense and focused portrait of a man with a difficult and dangerous job to do.
Written by Tom Bradby and based on his own novel, the film is an atmospheric, highly personal and often intricately plotted exposition of what it must have been like at ground level during a terrible part of Irish history. Perhaps it is weakened a little by hints of a burgeoning romance between Colette and Mac but Dream Dancer still remains a film of style and substance.
