Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Maisie Williams, Sian Clifford, Mawaan Rizwan, Taheen Modek, Thalissa Teixeira, Kerry Howard, Jason Flemyng, Michael Begley, Tony Pritchard, Sean Knopp, Sean Pertwee, Pooky Quesnel, Jean Trend, Caitlin Rawden, Josh Hull, Dominic Holmes.
It all starts with a lie, a small one, a fib in which we believe we are doing the right thing to keep someone safe from a truth which is more potentially devastating and overwhelming than the lie being exposed twenty years down the line. With Two Weeks To Live, would you come clean, or would you rather see the world explode around your ears if it meant you never had to admit to one small fib, one moment of falsehood, delivered to keep someone alive.
How do we respond to those that have been brainwashed, indoctrinated, into believing that the end times are upon us, how do we see the world through their eyes when they have been under the constant illusion that they have to be trained to survive the coming apocalypse, and kept away from society as a whole, away from other children, from fun, and embrace the fact that they can only rely on the one person who has told them all this, and their instinct to endure.
Despite the ever concerning prospect that the world has embraced constant fear as a way to purge its soul, there are still thankfully more ways to live than taking the route provided by Tina Noakes as she seeks to protect her daughter Kim from the forces of evil than have been alluded to all her life. However it is when Nicky, played with wonderful quiet conviction by Mawaan Rizwan, persuades the young woman that she, and the rest of the world, only has two weeks to live, that she takes the chance to settle old scores, and cross a few important milestones off her list.
It is in this sudden dramatic conflict with the world as she knows it that the fallout of release ensues, the unburdening of a soul unhindered by the responsibility to the future, can now find ways to cross what she as a young woman finds important, off her to-do list; and what a list it is, involving revenge, payback and the settling of scores.
Two Weeks To Live is not your usual killer story, there is no sense of outward damage in which films like Nikitathrive, or dark female characters such as Villanelle or even Anya Stark embrace the feel of the gun, the sword or the bomb. This is one to which Maisie Williams, in the role of Kim Noakes, along with Sian Clifford as her mother, Tina, have been drawn into a world of survival, and whilst Tina is holding secrets of her own, it is to Maisie Williams to which the sense of fear wishing to be expressed as anger comes pouring out with charm, demand and insight to the condition of internal brain washing, of holding someone captive whilst all time believing you have their best interests at heart.
A tremendous comedy drama that holds together well across its entire series, and one that offers scope for further understanding of the nature of familial captivity.
Ian D. Hall