I capture the castle (Romola Garai)

(Amazon UK link)

It’s over twenty years since we watched the DVD of the film ‘I capture the castle’. I remembered that it was based on a book by Dodie Smith, and that it involved a writer who wasn’t writing. I also recalled that he got locked in a room by his children. But that’s all I could remember of it.

I had no idea until we started watching that the father in question is played - brilliantly - by Bill Nighy. He is perfect for the role, with the typical balance of grumpiness and kindness that this actor often displays. However the real star is 17-year-old Cassandra (Romola Garai), one of his daughters, who narrates the story, while writing it in her notebooks. 

We learn from flashbacks that her father published a novel twelve years before the story begins, and it was a major success. But he had a bad temper, and was in prison for a while; we only learn later what happened. Cassandra thinks they were a happy family when she was young, and recalls the day they saw a somewhat tumbledown castle, and decided that they would live there.