I was a little disappointed with last year's film pairing from Stephen Poliakoff (Friends & Crocodles/Gideon's Daughter) as I felt they fell short of his best work. But Capturing Mary is excellent, and slightly unusual for him - intensely focused, covering a long passage of time and possessing a very, very faint hint of the supernatural (for want of a better word).

Its companion piece, Joe's Palace, introduces us to both Joe and the house where Capturing Mary largely takes place; Joe is the doorman who admits Mary (Maggie Smith) who in turn takes him on a reminiscence of her previous time in the house and the effect a mysterious stranger had on her, initially in the 1950s but, as it turns out, for the rest of her life.

All the performances are astonishing. Maggie Smith turns in some of her best work, newcomer Danny Lee Wynter shows immense promise, David Walliams is supremely creepy and proves he's bigger than Little Britain (and can really handle a salad), while Ruth… more »

I was a little disappointed with last year's film pairing from Stephen Poliakoff (Friends & Crocodles/Gideon's Daughter) as I felt they fell short of his best work. But Capturing Mary is excellent, and slightly unusual for him - intensely focused, covering a long passage of time and possessing a very, very faint hint of the supernatural (for want of a better word).

Its companion piece, Joe's Palace, introduces us to both Joe and the house where Capturing Mary largely takes place; Joe is the doorman who admits Mary (Maggie Smith) who in turn takes him on a reminiscence of her previous time in the house and the effect a mysterious stranger had on her, initially in the 1950s but, as it turns out, for the rest of her life.

All the performances are astonishing. Maggie Smith turns in some of her best work, newcomer Danny Lee Wynter shows immense promise, David Walliams is supremely creepy and proves he's bigger than Little Britain (and can really handle a salad), while Ruth Wilson as the young Mary builds on her Jane Eyre tour de force with an even better performance (while looking almost unimaginably luscious). The atmosphere is brilliantly sustained and the evocation of the 1960s in particular is very well achieved. At £11.99 on Play this is a steal.