QUIET BATTLES Liam Neeson trades action for ‘Ordinary Love’
For Liam Neeson, “Ordinary Love” is anything but. A low-key portrait of a retired Irish couple — Neeson’s Tom and Lesley Manville’s Joan — facing a sudden crisis with a breast cancer diagnosis, “Ordinary Love” filmed in the actor’s native Northern Ireland.
“We shot in Belfast,” Neeson, 67, began. “Is it a Belfast story? No, it’s not. It’s supposed to be set there but it could be anywhere.”
Joan’s treatment is realistic, with hair loss, nausea, a double mastectomy, all in the hope of getting well.
“It’s not a cancer movie,” Neeson insisted. “To put it in a nutshell: It’s a love story. It’s not two kids, it’s a couple who have been together 30 years. That’s quite unique in today’s modern cinema.”
Added Manville, 63, an Oscar nominee for “Phantom Thread” opposite Daniel Day-Lewis, “It released in England last year and I had lots of feedback. I discovered people were keen to see a middle-aged love story because films today seem to be exclusively about young people.
“People are very touched by the scene when they go to a hotel the night before her breasts are removed. It’s an incredibly honest and moving scene when
Tom says goodbye to her breasts.
“Liam had a great idea for Tom to release the turban Joan was wearing, so it’s no hair and all of that. And it’s just lovely, this man and this woman finding each other even though they’re going through this horrendous thing.” Tom’s mantra is “We’re in this together,” until an exhausted, fearful, physically ravaged Joan explodes. “That’s a true feature of the film,” Manville said.
“However much you’re in a great relationship, death and illness, those moments you go through, are inevitably lonely moments because you’re the one going through it.”
Added Neeson, “Of course the guy I play, a typical guy, is ‘I can fix this. Here’s the tablets and you must take them.’ The guy likes to fix things instead of listening, you know what I mean.”
“Taken” made Neeson a global action star — is this a deliberate step from that cycle?
“I guess it was a conscious break. But once I read the script, I thought I’d love to do this. Then I heard Lesley was doing it and I was in.”