Antonia & Jane

From director Beeban Kidron, Antonia & Jane is a look at an enduring friendship between a pair of decidedly opposite people. Beautiful, sophisticated, and self-assured, Antonia (Saskia Reeves) has it all -- or so it seems to the pudgy wallflower Jane (Imelda Staunton), who secretly resents the fact ...more

Tart, sophisticated, and remarkably concise, this episodic British comedy showcased the wonderful vulnerability of Imelda Staunton more than a decade before Vera Drake earned her Oscar attention. As plain, mournful Jane, the less outwardly successful of the two title characters, Staunton bypasses any conventional notion of the perpetual bridesmaid. Her character may play second fiddle to Saskia Reeves' wonderfully self-absorbed Antonia, but she's also willfully idiosyncratic and frankly sexual. ...more