Halle Berry dating a man who killed her husband in the Oscar-winning movie.

(Edited highlights of the panel's review)

Watch the whole programme - 7 June 2002

MARK LAWSON:
Ian Rankin, it is a good pitch for a film. A woman falls in love with her husband's executioner. But is it well executed?

IAN RANKIN:
It is. I found it a difficult film to watch. It is probably the most harrowing film I've seen this year. But the performances are compelling.

It seemed very realistic to me. They don't overplay their hand at any point. I thought that Halle Berry was well deserving of the Oscar.

What you saw in the clip was that they managed to do an awful lot with silences. It is a very monosyllabic film. There is very little being said, and what's being said doesn't seem to say very much.

But behind all that is the bigger message coming out. The way that Billy Bob Thornton's character changes, develops through the film is wonderfully brought off.

At one point he gives her a tip before he knows who she is, a tip of 8 cents. Later on, as his character develops, he manages $2. That difference is telling you something. That there's been a change in him. That's the way it does it. It doesn't really telegraph its punches, it allows the viewer a modicum of intelligence to go along with the film.

MARK LAWSON:
Paul Morley, the screenplay is trying to work out something very big psychologically, which is to do with these two damaged characters who are attracted to each other, the idea that somehow they can redeem the things that have happened in their lives. It is a hard thing to explain. Does the film managed to do that?

PAUL MORLEY:
Yeah, I thought it was a film of two halves. I'm surprised in a way that the Academy managed to get past the execution of the Diddyman, P.Diddy, to get to Halle Berry. She doesn't really turn up until quite late in the movie.

In terms of her winning the Oscar, I think that was interesting. There is a hard thing you have to go through to get there. Interestingly, almost documentary based representation of an execution. I thought that was interesting.

You don't want to watch it if you're depressed, that's for sure...

There are lots of things about it that I really, really enjoyed. But the problem is when you go into a movie where someone has won an Oscar, you have that against the thing.

The other thing that I had slightly was that I'd just watched the England and Argentina match. This isn't relevant necessarily, but it is an interesting thing to watch immediately after that kind of success.

There was a moment when Billy Bob Thornton , who I adore and is fantastic in the movie, and Halle Berry became a bit like a Tennessee Williams - Beckham and Posh. I kept, unfortunately, seeing the shadow of Beckham over Billy Bob Thornton.

It is a Billy Bob Thornton movie in a way. It's interesting that Halle Berry came out of it with the Oscar. There was an interesting persuasion that was going on for that to be the case.

Of course, Peter Boyle is fabulous in it as well, with the only real harsh kind of anti-racism that comes through, in what is otherwise quite a gentle, tender movie, comes from him. That's the heart of the racist element. And elsewhere, it has a bit of has a tenderness to it.

At the end, which obviously I won't give away, I thought it was a bit of a cop out.

MARK LAWSON:
Peggy Reynolds, Paul was suggesting that we have someone who is clearly a racist in the central character's father. Then it's also trying to deal throughout with racism. Difficult thing to do, how does it do that?

PEGGY REYNOLDS:
This is completely a film about the failure of fathers all the way through.

Every single one of these fathers, including the father of the man who is executed, has failed his child.

The reason why Halle Berry won the Oscar, even though she arrives on the scene late in the day is because it is a film about the redemption through the feminine.

There is an very interesting conversation that Hank, the Billy Bob Thornton character, has with Halle Berry. She says, "I got these red curtains on credit, aren't they beautiful?"

Then the next scene we find him redecorating his own house. He has found his feminine. Through that, there is going to be some redemption.

At this point I began to think, "Wait a minute, this is so programmatic."

At the end of the film, which as you say you won't give away, to some extent she is going to break the pattern of the failure of all these fathers.

MARK LAWSON:
Ian, there has been a lot of discussion about the sex scene in this. Many in terms of it being more authentic, some people say.

It is actually more interesting than that I think, because almost never are black and white actors allowed a sex scene in Hollywood movies. You think of Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington in The Pelican Brief. An interesting scene that, but a lot of discussion. Is it as important as people have suggested?

IAN RANKIN:
I thought it was well handled. The idea of the pair of them on the sofa, one affected by grief... well, both affected by grief in different ways.

By an hour into the film, you would have already lost half of the cast. Don't get too attached to anybody in this film, because you never know if one of them is going to drop dead before your very eyes.

The first sex scene was handled very well. The second scene, I squirmed a little bit, the new, tender, Billy Bob Thornton.

PEGGY REYNOLDS:
Except that you've left out the very first sex scene, or the first two, which were the scenes with the prostitutes. To my mind, the progression of what kind of sex these people were having was extremely interesting.

I better not say any more on that subject, perhaps, because it does rather give things away! But it does end up very much with attention to the woman, which previously has been denied her.

MARK LAWSON:
A difficult film to watch but worth watching is the general view of Monster's Ball.