Crush (2001 film)

Crush
Promotional poster
Directed by	John McKay
Produced by	Julia Chasman Hanno Huth Paul Webster Lee Thomas
Written by	John McKay
Starring	Andie MacDowell Imelda Staunton Anna Chancellor Kenny Doughty Bill Paterson
Music by	Kevin Sargent
Cinematography	Henry Braham
Editing by	Anne Sopel
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Classics
Release date(s)	19 August 2001 (2001-08-19) (Edinburgh Film Festival) 7 June 2002 (2002-06-07) (United Kingdom) 5 September 2002 (2002-09-05) (Germany)
Running time	112 minutes
Country	Germany United Kingdom
Language	English French

Crush is a 2001 film written and directed by John McKay and starring Andie MacDowell, Imelda Staunton, Anna Chancellor, Kenny Doughty, and Bill Paterson.

Plot

Forty-something schoolmistress Kate and her two best friends, police captain Janine and doctor Molly, live in Britain and share their single lives and dating exploits in weekly chats. Kate has recovered from ovarian cyst disease and fears a relapse; she hasn't been dating much. By chance, she meets Jed, a former student of hers, now a handsome twenty-something church organist. To her surprise, she ends up sleeping with him and the two embark on an unlikely relationship that's looked on with suspicion by Janine and Molly. Janine comes to believe in Kate and Jed's feelings for each other but Molly is still dubious, eventually attempting to prove Jed's faithlessness by seducing him, which fails but angers Kate to the extreme. After an argument about their future, Jed rushes out of Kate's house and is struck and killed by a passing truck. This unexpected tragedy brings the three friends closer together. Kate reluctantly embarks on a mild romance with a local vicar who's always been in love with her, but when she finally agrees to marry him, she becomes ill at the altar and discovers that she is pregnant with Jed's child. She decides to have the baby and raise it on her own, while the vicar meets a woman who's actually excited about him, Janine meets a good guy and Molly falls for a woman. The three friends reconcile and continue to share their lives and experiences.

Cast

Andie MacDowell ... Kate Scales
Imelda Staunton ... Janine
Anna Chancellor ... Molly Cartwright
Kenny Doughty ... Jed Willis
Bill Paterson ... Rev. Gerald Marsden
Caroline Holdaway ... Pam
Joe Roberts ... Brendan
Josh Cole ... PC Darren Blake
Gary Powell ... Sergeant
Christian Burgess ... Kate's Frenchman
Morris Perry ... Bishop
Richenda Carey ... Lady Governor
Roger Booth ... Hearty Governor
Derek Deadman ... Little Crematorium Man
Andrew Bicknell ... Mr. Yacht

Debated title

As told by John McKay,^[1] the film combines two plot lines which eventually came together. At first he wrote a play which was named "Crush" about an older woman and a younger man.

Later, he met "a set of women doctors who were working too hard to get a date on Friday nights and so would get together instead, drink cheap liquor, eat chocolate, smoke cigarettes and have a competition to decide who was the saddest fucker of the week". This influenced the original play as it "sprouted more female characters" and become a movie script.

McKay, who both wrote the screenplay and directed the film in 1999, wanted to name the film The Sad Fuckers Club,^[1] a name which he felt fit the plot line - and which, according to him, Andie MacDowell approved of when offered the role in the film. This, however, was changed after resistance from the producers and distributors and uneasiness on the part of test audiences, eventually reverting to the original name, "Crush".

Crush met with generally mixed reviews, and has scored an average of 5 out of 10 on review aggregate site, Rotten Tomatoes. It also scored 35% from all critics on the website, and 43% when narrowed down to Top Critics.

External links

• Crush
• Crush at AllRovi
• Crush at the Internet Movie Database
• Crush at Rotten Tomatoes
• Crush at Metacritic
• Crush at Box Office Mojo
• ^[1]"Filming and f***ing", John McKay's account of how the film was made, in "The Guardian", 24/5/2002

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} McKay, John (2002-05-24). "Filming and f***ing". The Guardian. http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,720778,00.html. Retrieved 2007-01-07.