LONDON RIVER: a gentle response to a terrible tragedy

To be caught up in a suicide bombing is something most of us will thankfully never experience, but that makes it difficult to get beyond the blood and fear and "there but for the grace of god..." approach to imagining how we might respond to such a situation.

In focusing in on a small personal drama rather than attempting to encompass the bigger horror of a major terrorist attack, writer-director Rachid Bouchareb has created in LONDON RIVER a story with the power to affect all of us.
The July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks on the London Underground and a bus in Tavistock Square provide the initial cause in this narrative but it is the consequences of those explosions on two strangers who weren't even in London that this story is interested in.
When Elizabeth (Brenda Blethyn) sees tv news coverage of the carnage she instinctively reaches for the phone to call her daughter Jane, who's living in London to check that she's ok. After several days with no response she starts to fear the worst and travels to the capital from her home in Guernsey to search for Jane. While distributing missing posters and doing the rounds of hospitals treating those injured in the bombings she encounters Ousmane, an African Muslim immigrant from France who is similarly searching for his son. 
Elizabeth is initially unable to overcome her prejudice against this man who represents the unknown 'other' to her, and work with him to find their children. But she's forced to reassess her attitude when they discover that her daughter has been dating his son.
What makes LONDON RIVER so much more than just another polemic about bigotry and ignorance are the extraordinary performances by Blethyn and Malian actor Sotigui Kouyate. Where Elizabeth is emotional and judgmental Kouyate as Ousmane is dignified, restrained and resigned. He gives no indication of taking offence at Elizabeth's rudeness, and never attempts to force the issue, choosing instead to give her the space to come around to him in her own time. As she nears the point of emotional exhaustion his inner calm gives her the strength to keep going.
Low key yet immensely powerful and affecting, LONDON RIVER is contemporary cinema at it's best. Quite why this film has not been showered with awards is beyond me.