Dir: Nicolas Roeg | Cast: Oliver Reed, Amanda Donohoe, Georgina Hale, Frances Barber | UK drama 117’
The most striking scenes in ‘Castaway’ are the first twenty minutes depicting a drab eighties London. What follows is a pale shadow of ‘Michael Powell’s Age of Consent, which was set in Australia; although Powell’s earlier film doesn’t boast a pair of nuns in the comely form of Georgina Hale and Frances Barber (looking far tastier fully-clothed than Amanda Donohoe in the all-together).
Miss Donohoe is supposed to be a lover of old movies (she’s seen watching Peter Finch on the telly), which makes it rather surprising that she doesn’t turn tail and flee the moment she sees that her prospective companion is Olly Reed (who progressively looks more and more like a ginger Jabba the Hutt as the film develops), whose idea of a smooth come-on is “A screw and a cold beer is at the moment the summit of my ambition!”; so its hardly surprising they make such an argumentative pair (especially as she gets more turned on when he talks about food rather than sex).
Naturally as shot by Nicolas Roeg it all looks very impressive but their constant squabbling rapidly gets very monotonous. @RichardChatten