Based upon the true life memoire of Helga Schneider, Let Me Go explores the effect of abandonment and its rippling impact on family relationships; in this instance between four generations of women in the same family. A fantastic cast led by Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply) playing Helga deliver on a thoughtful emotional and superbly adapted screenplay from Polly Steele (who also directs this independently financed piece – prize winning at Bentonville for the ensemble cast and part of the official selection for the Edinburgh Film Festival). Set in the London of 2000, we meet Helga as a woman working as a dressmaker in London who receives an unsettling letter and puts it away as her granddaughter calls into the shop. With a bit of cajoling by the granddaughter, Emily (Lucy Boynton – Sing Street), we learn Helga's cousin, Eva, has written from Vienna to say that Helga's mother, Traudi is close to death in a nursing home. That sad news is not only a revelation for Emily and Helga's own daughter, Beth (as a somewhat lost soul and free spirit by Jodhi May) as neither were aware of a Traudi's being alive, but it is clear that Helga doesn't want to talk about the estrangement. It is only with some interweaving of flashbacks and Helga's own reluctant partial remarks that we learn that 60 years earlier Helga (then only four years old), is left in wartime Germany by Traudi to the care of an aunt. Traudi embodies many contradictions as both vulnerable, needy and confused old woman in a care home, but then at times revealing that she is sharp, devious and quite wicked. Without doubt played brilliantly by Swedish actress, Karin Bertling (The Bridge and Wallander). Emily's naïve excitement at discovering she has a long lost great- grandmother and her genuine affection for Helga sees her wheedling onto the trip to Vienna where we then get to follow not only the tides of Helga and Traudi's lives, but to see the unmistakable effects that mark Beth and Emily with the inevitable unravelling of family secrets and guilt. Underpinned by a moving and sympathetic soundtrack composed by Phil Selway (Radiohead) beautifully using a string quartet to mirror the main protagonists and the beautiful and poignant settings in and around Vienna, this film makes one think about the very essence of life, relationships and family ties. Bravo to the UPP for giving this two sold out shows and I hope there may be a growing take up of this small masterpiece of storytelling.
CHARLIE MCGINTY
CHARLIE MCGINTY