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The Children Act
Directed by
Richard Eyre
R
2018
1h 45m
Drama
6.7
74%
64%
Add to Watchlist
A judge races to decide the fate of a dying teenager in need of a lifesaving blood transfusion.
More
Where to Watch The Children Act
Kanopy
Free
Amazon Prime Video
Subscription
Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Subscription
+6 more
Cast of The Children Act
Emma Thompson
Fiona Maye
Stanley Tucci
Jack Maye
Fionn Whitehead
Adam Henry
Jason Watkins
Nigel Pauling
Anthony Calf
Mark Berner
Paul Jesson
Humphrey
Ben Chaplin
Kevin Henry
Eileen Walsh
Naomi Henry
Reena Lalbihari
Samaira
Dominic Carter
Roger
Paul Kemble
Keith
Daniel Fritz
German Journalist
Nikki Amuka-Bird
Amadia Kalu
Rosie Cavaliero
Marina Green
Rupert Vansittart
Sherwood Runcie
Wendy Nottingham
Laura
Stacha Hicks
Jill
Nicholas Jones
Professor Carter
Andrew Havill
George
Des McAleer
Jim the Porter
Paul Bigley
Colin
Michele Austin
Donna
Daniel Tuite
Sebastian
Micah Balfour
Blackwell
Patrick Brennan
Henrys' Solicitor
Howard Ward
Roy Whiting
Anjana Vasan
Kate
Syreeta Kumar
Moira
Naomi Frederick
Amanda
Simon Thorp
Hugh
Shaquille Ali-Yebuah
Jake
Robin Hooper
Butler
Rosie Boore
Sarah
David Webber
Ted
Alex Felton
Toby
Henrietta Clemett
Phoebe
Amelie Green
Maisie
Radhika Aggarwal
Emy
Julian Forsyth
Caradoc Bell
Sharon Bower
Master of The Rolls
Melody Green
Sally
Ty Hurley
High Court Judge (uncredited)
Honey Holmes
Director / Producer (uncredited)
Hiten Patel
Lawyer (uncredited)
Grace Crawford
Usher
Sarah Somerville
Associate
Avital Abergel
Twins' Mother
Raphael Desprez
Twins' Father
Annabel Galligan
Melanie
Ian Kelly
Mr. Soames
Manuela Maletta
Distressed Mother
Mark Taylor
Rich Man
Tatjana Anders
Lucky Wife
Melanie McLean
Battered Wife
Tralee Dunn
Registrar
Michaela Parker
Transfusion Nurse
Cathy Howse
Kathy
The Children Act Ratings & Reviews
Detroit News
Adam Graham
The Children Act leaves you not only wanting more, but ready to binge it.
San Francisco Chronicle
David Lewis
Thompson and Whitehead shine, and director Richard Eyre has crafted a highly textured, respectable film about grown-up issues.
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
"The Children Act" feels utterly of a piece with the original book: urbane, understated, handsomely realized and impeccably interpreted by a cast of superb actors.
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This film adaptation never reaches the intimate heights of Ian McEwan's novel, but Emma Thompson's portrait of a family court judge who lets the world in at the cost of losing her own judgment is acting of the highest order.
Observer
Rex Reed
Equally comfortable on both stage and screen, Emma Thompson brings an added value to the mix that literally saves the film and keeps the viewer awake.
RogerEbert.com
Tomris Laffly
As mature as movies get, the elegantly costumed and designed The Children Act is a welcome getaway from the now-fading summer's loud fare.
Arizona Republic
Bill Goodykoontz
[Thompson] is so good that she overwhelms the story's shortcomings.
Boston Globe
Mark Feeney
"The Children Act" isn't all that interesting a movie, despite the many talented people involved and the generally high level of work they do.
Slant Magazine
Diego Semerene
The Children Act stages the clumsiness of belated domestic confrontations with the very coldness that's kept its characters from having discussed their emotions for decades and from having had sex for almost a year.
MovieFreak.com
Sara Michelle Fetters
Thompson has incredible chemistry with Tucci and also shares a couple of staggeringly intimate moments with young Whitehead that brought tears to my eyes. She is the reason to watch this movie.
Miami New Times
Kristen Yoonsoo Kim
Thompson goes along with it as best as she can, but it's hard to watch this shift when we haven't been given any believable reason why Maye would fall for Adam's adolescent courtship and love poems.
Pajiba
Roxana Hadadi
Emma Thompson is quietly devastating in The Children Act, an Ian McEwan film that is only kind of emotionally manipulative.
NPR
Ella Taylor
Characters move through their posh habitats, explaining what they've done, are about to do, should have done years ago. Their confusion is fine; the fuzziness of the filmmaking less so.
Los Angeles Times
Justin Chang
It's always rewarding to watch Thompson bring her lucid wit and deep emotional reserves to bear on a meaty role.
New York Magazine/Vulture
Emily Yoshida
No one gives better pensive gaze here than Thompson; the drama lies in the fallibility of even the most competent and well-intentioned among us.
New York Times
Ben Kenigsberg
A beautifully internalized performance from Ms. Thompson and the various efforts to highlight the cinematic potential in Fiona's anguish... can't override the tidy ironies of Mr. McEwan's design.
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
It's worth seeing precisely for the heat of the arguments that you can enjoy after the screening and, above all, for Emma Thompson.
indieWire
David Ehrlich
Like so many of the movies that stem from McEwan's novels, "The Children Act" is a soulful and sophisticated adult drama that peers into the void between the beauty of ideals and the cost of living by them.
TheWrap
Alonso Duralde
If Emma Thompson can't make this drama about a family-court judge conflicted over her own decisions and the precarious state of her own family into something interesting and meaningful, then no one can. And she can't.
Entertainment Weekly
Leah Greenblatt
The pale, sharp-featured Whitehead brings an appropriately feverish intensity to Adam, who looks less like a typical 21st-century teenager than Lord Byron with a backpack.
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