Keeping Rosy - film review

Maxine Peake is superb in this gritty London-set drama from first-time director Steve Reeves

Two marginalised women clash in a tense, London-set drama, hauntingly shot by veteran cinematographer Roger Pratt. He is best known for his work on the Harry Potter series and helped create the seminal London movies Meantime and Mona Lisa. He’s got a great eye for grit.

Tightly wound, childless executive Charlotte (TV face of the moment, Maxine Peake) misses out on promotion and vents her misery on young Polish cleaner, Maya (Elisa Lasowski).

It’s annoying that the script, co-written by first-time director Steve Reeves, is full of holes (we’re asked to believe that the cleaner would lug a heavy birthday present to work, while a visiting infant proves uncannily quiet, and the climax is a complete joke).

Luckily, Peake’s pinched face provides plenty of distraction. The 39-year-old actress is the Miranda Richardson of our time; brittle, sensual and frail. I’m not a fan of people who have “staff” (why can’t people clean up their own mess?) so I was determined to loathe the immaculate Charlotte yet, thanks to Peake, I found myself willing her on. The beautiful Lasowski has barely any screen time but is also superb.

A second half — which involves Charlotte’s flaky sister from up North (Christine Bottomley) and a shifty but smart young security guard (Blake Harrison from The Inbetweeners) — adds to our sense of how the capital divides and rules. Poles, cockneys and northerners: they’re expendable in this universe. The only characters seen sitting pretty are the middle-class southerners who Charlotte works alongside: urbane, superficially decent types who’ve made use of her obsessive dedication but never quite accepted her as one of the gang.

Reeves’s claim to fame is that he shot that Agent Provocateur ad with Kylie Minogue. He’s not in sexy mode, here, but our heroine’s moral crisis does generate a nice bit of heat.

Latest film reviews

1/99

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in