The Girl in the Café
Encyclopedia
The Girl in the Café is a British made-for-television
drama film directed by David Yates
, written by Richard Curtis
and produced by Hilary Bevan Jones
. The film is produced by the independent production company Tightrope Pictures
and was originally screened on BBC One
in the United Kingdom on 25 June 2005. It was also shown in the United States on cable television
station Home Box Office
on the same day. Bill Nighy
portrays the character of Lawrence, with Kelly Macdonald
portraying Gina. Nighy and Macdonald had previously starred together in the 2003 BBC serial State of Play, which was also directed by Yates and produced by Bevan-Jones. The Girl in the Cafés casting director is Fiona Weir
who, at the time, was also the casting director for the Harry Potter films
, the last four of which Yates directed. The film was noted at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Award
s; it won for Outstanding Made for Television Movie
.
(Ken Stott
), who falls in love with Gina, a young woman whom he meets by chance in a London café. Lawrence takes Gina to a G8
summit in Reykjavík
, Iceland
, where she confronts the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
(Corin Redgrave
) over the issue of third world debt and poverty in Africa, much to Lawrence's embarrassment and the anger of his employers. However, he realises that she is right and tries to help persuade the Chancellor and others at the summit to do something about the issues concerned.
's Africa Lives season of programming, and with the global Make Poverty History
campaign, for which writer Curtis was a prominent campaigner. As such, it was also shown in South Africa on the same day as its UK and US premieres. Curtis was better-known as a writer of romantic comedy
films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral
, Notting Hill
and Love Actually
(the latter of which he also directed and had featured Nighy). Although The Girl in the Café does contain some of his trademark comedy elements, it is generally more serious in tone and attempts to highlight the issues of poverty and fair trade
.
Andrew Anthony
, for example, wrote a negative review in The Observer
:
Sarah Vine, being herself a wife to a conservative politician, argued in The Times
that the message was devaluated by the oversimplification of the problem. In her opinion the main weakness of the film is the belief that the leaders of G8 can do anything to actually handle poverty.:
However, the film gained positive reviews too, with Alessandre Stanley from The New York Times
stating:
There were also more positive reactions. Previewing the programme before transmission, Sarah Crompton was very enthusiastic when writing for The Daily Telegraph
:
Macdonald and Nighy were both nominated at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards for their performances in the production, while the film and Macdonald received Emmy wins. David Yates and Fiona Weir were also nominated at the Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing and Casting respectively.
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
drama film directed by David Yates
David Yates
David Yates is an English filmmaker who rose to mainstream prominence directing the final four films in the Harry Potter film series. He helmed the series' fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth installments, all of which became an instant blockbuster success and made him the most commercially...
, written by Richard Curtis
Richard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit...
and produced by Hilary Bevan Jones
Hilary Bevan Jones
Hilary Susan Bevan Jones is a British television producer, who has worked on several acclaimed drama programmes, including the multi-award-winning State of Play . She entered the television industry in 1979, when she gained a job as an assistant floor manager at BBC Television Centre...
. The film is produced by the independent production company Tightrope Pictures
Tightrope Pictures
Tightrope Pictures is a British television production company, founded in late 2003 by writer Paul Abbott and producer Hilary Bevan-Jones, who had worked together that year on the successful BBC drama serial State of Play...
and was originally screened on BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in the United Kingdom on 25 June 2005. It was also shown in the United States on cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
station Home Box Office
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
on the same day. Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...
portrays the character of Lawrence, with Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald is a Scottish actress, known for her role in the independent film Trainspotting and mainstream releases such as Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Intermission, No Country for Old Men and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2...
portraying Gina. Nighy and Macdonald had previously starred together in the 2003 BBC serial State of Play, which was also directed by Yates and produced by Bevan-Jones. The Girl in the Cafés casting director is Fiona Weir
Fiona Weir
Fiona Weir is a British casting director. In 2005, she received a Primetime Emmy nomination for the television film The Girl in the Café, directed by David Yates with whom she worked with on the Harry Potter film franchise, her most notable credit....
who, at the time, was also the casting director for the Harry Potter films
Harry Potter (film series)
The Harry Potter film series is a British-American film series based on the Harry Potter novels by the British author J. K. Rowling...
, the last four of which Yates directed. The film was noted at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Award
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming...
s; it won for Outstanding Made for Television Movie
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie
This is a list of the winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, which is awarded since 1992. The category was originally called Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special.-1980s:*1980: The Miracle Worker...
.
Overview
The film tells the story of Lawrence, a civil servant working for the Chancellor of the ExchequerChancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
(Ken Stott
Ken Stott
Kenneth Campbell "Ken" Stott is a Scottish actor, particularly known in the United Kingdom for his many roles in television.-Early life:...
), who falls in love with Gina, a young woman whom he meets by chance in a London café. Lawrence takes Gina to a G8
G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
summit in Reykjavík
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...
, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, where she confronts the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
(Corin Redgrave
Corin Redgrave
Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and political activist.-Early life:Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, the only son and middle child of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...
) over the issue of third world debt and poverty in Africa, much to Lawrence's embarrassment and the anger of his employers. However, he realises that she is right and tries to help persuade the Chancellor and others at the summit to do something about the issues concerned.
Production
The production was conceived to tie-in both with the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Africa Lives season of programming, and with the global Make Poverty History
Make Poverty History
Make Poverty History is the name of a campaign that exists in a number of countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark , Finland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Great Britain and Ireland...
campaign, for which writer Curtis was a prominent campaigner. As such, it was also shown in South Africa on the same day as its UK and US premieres. Curtis was better-known as a writer of romantic comedy
Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...
films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant...
, Notting Hill
Notting Hill (film)
Notting Hill is a 1999 British romantic comedy film set in Notting Hill, London, released on 21 May 1999. The screenplay was by Richard Curtis, who had written Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Roger Michell...
and Love Actually
Love Actually
Love Actually is a 2003 British romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as their tales progress...
(the latter of which he also directed and had featured Nighy). Although The Girl in the Café does contain some of his trademark comedy elements, it is generally more serious in tone and attempts to highlight the issues of poverty and fair trade
Fair trade
Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...
.
Reception
On BBC One, the programme gained an audience of 5.5 million, a 29% share of the total television audience watching over its ninety minute duration, winning its timeslot. The opinions, however, were divided.Andrew Anthony
Andrew Anthony
Andrew Anthony is a journalist who has written for The Guardian since 1990, and The Observer.He is also the author of On Penalties and The Fall-Out .-Published works:*On Penalties...
, for example, wrote a negative review in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
:
Sarah Vine, being herself a wife to a conservative politician, argued in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
that the message was devaluated by the oversimplification of the problem. In her opinion the main weakness of the film is the belief that the leaders of G8 can do anything to actually handle poverty.:
However, the film gained positive reviews too, with Alessandre Stanley from The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
stating:
There were also more positive reactions. Previewing the programme before transmission, Sarah Crompton was very enthusiastic when writing for The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
:
Macdonald and Nighy were both nominated at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards for their performances in the production, while the film and Macdonald received Emmy wins. David Yates and Fiona Weir were also nominated at the Emmy Awards for Outstanding Directing and Casting respectively.