PUFFBALL/KELLY REILLY SHINES

Talk about chicken and eggs. Who is the star of this film? Director Nicholas Roeg, making a comeback? Or Kelly Reilly, making a breakthrough? This being the film business, it seems the nod must go to Ms. Reilly.

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Certainly Roeg deserves a big share of the attention. This new film, part of his 80th birthday celebrations, is a massive tribute to his filmmaking skills.

It all began long ago, with work as a cameraman with some of the Sixties leading directors, notable on Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451° and Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd.

Then, in 1970, came his own directorial breakthrough, the outrageous Performance, a scandalous, psychedelic spin on the gangster genre with Mick Jagger in one of the lead roles.

Yet even this classic did not prepare anyone for the shock impact of Don’t Look Now, still celebrated for its brave sex scene as much as its scariness.

He followed up with Walkabout, with two siblings lost in the Australian bush; The Man Who Fell To Earth; and Bad Timing, tweaking a remarkable performance from Art Garfunkel, of all people.

He has been busy ever since then, but seldom with anything of similar potential.

Now Puffball, based on a 1980 novel by Fay Weldon, and adapted by her son Dan, telling the story of O’Reilly’s harrowing pregnancy in deepest Ireland.

Avant garde architect Reilly is there to convert an old Irish cottage into a modern dwelling and immediately arouses the interest and the ire of the neighbours –witch-minded grandmother Rita Tushingham, baby machine Miranda Richardson, mysterious daughter Leona Igoe, and Will Houston, the only man for miles around.

So begin nine months of a difficult birth, which may be cramped by bad spells from the neighbours, or may be merely a figment of Reilly’s "fish out of water" mentality.

Roeg is at pains to stress that Puffbal is NOT a genre film. Specifically, it is not horror, or thriller or suspense, despite having elements of all three. Nor is it romance or a love story, though these aspects also figure large.

What it is most decidedly is a most unusual film, incorporating some outstanding camera work, editing and performances, all with a Roegian relish.

It is also by turns intriguing, baffling, engrossing, annoying.

So it will split audience, between those who think it is outstanding, and those who have no clue what it all means. But at least no one can fault it for being ordinary.

Oh, and it features an entirely luminescent performance from Reilly.

Puffball opens in key cities in the UK on Friday, July 18, 2008.

Posted July 14, 2008.