Swann

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Swann ★½ 1996

Too many loose ends and weak direction from Benson Gyles (in her feature film debut) waste the efforts of a talented cast. Chicago-based writer Sarah Maloney (Richardson) is doing a biography of Mary Swann, wife/ murder victim of a backwater Ontario farmer, who secretly wrote poetry (and gets compared to Emily Dickinson). Sarah heads to Nadeau to meet with Mary's friend Rose (Fricker) and discovers she may have altered some of the published poetry but there's not much there to really care about. Based on a novel by Carol Shields. 98m/C VHS . GB CA Miranda Richardson, Brenda Fricker, Michael Ontkean, Sean McCann, John Neville, Sean Hewitt, Kyra Harper, David Cubitt, Geny Walter; D: Anna Benson Gyles; W: David Young; C: Gerald Packer; M: Richard Rodney Bennett.