Cassandra (Garai) and Simon (Thomas) in I Capture the Castle, a love story set amid superb scenery.

Fairytale quest
I Capture the Castle


Stars Tim Fywell, Romola Garai, Marc Blucas, Henry Thomas, Rose Byrne, Bill Nighy, Tara Fitzgerald. Rating MA.

Reviewer: PTE Simone Heyer

This movie is like so many others set in Britain early last century. An inseparable family live in an old castle (this time in Suffolk) and have all sorts of encounters.

There’s the eccentric writer-father Mortmain (Nighy), who began renting the castle to write his first book. After holing himself up in a tower for 10 years, there was no follow-up novel and the family was living on the breadline.

He has two daughters – the painfully beautiful, delicate Rose (Byrne) with no future outside the dilapidated castle and the other, Cassandra, (Garai) plainer-looking and intense. Cassandra seeks her way out of the castle with her own writing – a journal, which serves as a narrative to the film.

The younger genius son caps off the odd bunch, creatively supervised by their stepmother Topaz (Fitzgerald), a bohemian who has a penchant for dying the family’s clothes unusual shades.

The girls are coming of an age where they want to live their own lives, but the family has no money and they live well away from London.

The owners of the castle – two American brothers, Simon and Neil (Thomas and Blucas) – come to check out their property and why their tenants haven’t paid the rent for the past five years.

Naturally they’re both drawn to the beauty of Rose, who sees her ticket out. She plays them until Simon proposes and Rose moves to London.

Cassandra, too, loves Simon and because of that overlooks relationships with other nice boys who present themselves.
Rose lives the high life on her fiance’s money until nearing the wedding, Cassandra pays a surprise visit and insists Rose marry for love – not for money alone.

Rose disappears and days later reappears in a seaside town with Neil, the buffoon brother of her fiancé, who she marries in a quiet ceremony.

I Capture the Castle is a beautiful fairytale story with magnificent scenery and lovely costumes and a few laughs along the way. An enchanting movie.

Charlie (Murphy) with some of the young charges in his care.

Daddy of all carers
Daddy Day Care


Stars Eddie Murphy, Steve Zahn, Anjelica Huston, Lacey Chabert, Jeff Garlin. Rated G.

Reviewer: PTE Simone Heyer
Who can resist the rather amusing Eddie Murphy? Daddy Day Care is his latest offering to the comedy film scene.

Charlie (Murphy) works for a high-quality advertising company marketing all manner of food. He and his friend Phil (Garlin) have the account for Vege Os, the delicious vegetable-flavoured breakfast cereal. Not so much a winner, and after a year’s work on it, the two are fired.

Charlie’s son is now old enough to go to daycare, so his wife goes back to work as a lawyer – and gets to drive his prized Mercedes convertible.

After trying to get work for a few months, and having difficulty funding his son’s high-class preschool, Chapman Academy, Charlie decides to start his own daycare centre – in the ideal location of his own home.

His wife is naturally delighted with the decision and doesn’t think it will last.

Daddy Day Care has a top advertising campaign and calls in all the families who either can’t afford the alternative or aren’t inclined to use it. The guys have a small but interesting group of clientele – including a Flash Gordon lookalike who didn’t take his costume off, ever – and a few other little misfits.

Soon the word spreads and Chapman starts losing its customers to Daddy Day Care. The school reports Daddy Day Care to the local childcare inspectors in an effort to get it shut down, but the boys have a first-class operation, even if they’re winging it.

This film is a light-hearted comedy that kids and adults alike will enjoy.