Schande (2008)

Schande: Directed by Steve Jacobs. With John Malkovich, Jessica Haines, Eriq Ebouaney, Fiona Press. After having an affair with a student, a Cape Town professor moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.

“I was fortunate enough to not have read the book so I was coming in with fresh eyes and very open to what was on offer after being in my 6th week of lockdown and scraping the bottom of my Netflix / Prime Video barrels.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film is a snapshot in time that marks the promise of a bright future during one of the most prosperous periods in Irelandu0026#39;s economic and political history. Yet this 2003 era of the u0026quot;Celtic Tigeru0026quot; seems to elude the countryu0026#39;s seemingly broken sons born of generations of poverty. Itu0026#39;s a paradox-pocked landscape in which its protagonists manifest the national psyche of the time in which a nation had an identity crisis and ideas of success were measured on materialism.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNot too dark, Not too light and a great ensemble cast that really got to spread their wings from other roles we know many of them for, Hollyoaks fans – look out for the random homeless guy. Iu0026#39;m not typically one for coming of age dramas so this hit the mark for me with its colorful cinematics as the backdrop for some dark material. Thereu0026#39;s lots of room for you to draw your own conclusions without having to be spoonfed everything, so if you didnu0026#39;t enjoy it, thatu0026#39;s kind of on you.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI would have wished Eoin Macken took more liberties in his interpretation of the book exploring more backstory, showing more scenery of Dublin perhaps and evening out the character development and screen time with Rez who was drowned out a little from the strong performances of Finn Cole and DC Chapman.”