After scoring two global hits, the director has made a low-budget film about a mother who builds her way out of homelessness – and it’s inspired by an article in the Guardian
‘Black widow.” With this code-phrase from her mum, a little girl runs to the corner shop. In the kitchen at home, her dad is attacking her mum after finding a rolled-up wad of cash she has been saving, in order to leave him. In the shop, the girl shows the owner a note: “Call 999. My life is in danger. Sandra.”
So begins Herself, the new drama from Phyllida Lloyd, the stage director who has made just two films in her three-decade career. The first, Mamma Mia!, was one of the most successful
British films ever, earning more than $600m worldwide. The second, The Iron Lady, pocketed
Meryl Streep an Oscar. Herself is minuscule compared with those – its budget would barely have covered Streep’s Margaret Thatcher hairspray. The film’s star is the not (yet) famous
Irish stage
Actor Clare Dunne, who co-wrote the script and plays the young mother Sandra, a cleaner in
Dublin.