UK Release Date: 12-12-2008
Starring: Jeremy Northam, Peter O'Toole, Sam Neil
UK Certificate: U
Director: Toa Fraser
Country: New Zealand/Gb

Dean Spanley is pitched as a drama about father and son relationships, authority and emotional frigidity, but is considerably more enjoyable than such an outline might sugg­est. Its source is a fairly obscure 1936 novella by none other than Lord Dunsany, the great Anglo-Irish fantasy writer whose better known works include Time and the Gods and The King of Elfland’s Daughter.

Jeremy Northam plays Henslowe Fisk, a dutiful son frustrated by his cold and overbearing elderly father, Horatio Fisk (Peter O’Toole). He is fated, it seems, to bump into one Dean Spanley (Sam Neill), whom he invites to dinner. When plied with his favourite tipple, a rare Hungarian sweet wine, the Dean reminisces about his past life as a dog – revelations that have a surprising effect on Fisk senior.

This is, it must be admitted, a lightweight piece, and its literary origins mean that it only just stretches to a feature-length treatment. It is also largely dialogue-driven, and that it succ­eeds so well is largely due to a well-crafted, convincing and funny script, delivered by a stellar cast; Peter O’Toole, in particular, turns in a great performance as the old curmudgeon who finds catharsis in the Dean’s tale. The film for the most part manages to stay just the right side of sentimentality and whimsy and, despite its period-drama feel, has a striking imagin­ativeness and originality worthy of Dunsany himself, with an inspired take on what it would be like to be a dog: the excitement at the smell of a flock of terrified sheep, the barked threats to the odourless, sneaky Moon trying to creep up on the Master’s house…