“To Olivia” (M) ***

THIS is an agreeable but not magnificent movie about the innards of a relationship between a married pair – the man, Roald Dahl (played by Hugh Bonneville), the author of slightly wacky books for kids of all ages, his wife (Oscar-winning, for her role in “Hud”) actress Patricia Neal (Keeley Hawes). 

Their life skills may be opposing but complementary; watching them interacting is more aligned with the film’s intention than at their first appearance (their real-life marriage lasted for two decades more). Who can know what went on after the guests left?

Medical science hadn’t yet come up with a treatment for measles. The plot centres, but doesn’t dwell, on the couple’s daughter Olivia who, in 1962 aged seven, died of the ailment. 

Roald and Patricia were living on a small patch of rural Buckinghamshire at the time. It’s not surprising that two people with burgeoning creative talents took losing Olivia gravely, unable to understand how or why it happened. 

Much of the dramatic energy in writer/director John Hay’s screenplay adapts Stephen Michael Shearer’s book “Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life”. The film, Shearer’s first to be filmed, has plenty of that, occasionally physically vigorous but mostly delivered as dialogue. Either way, it doesn’t pull too many punches. 

For some filmgoers, that balance may make “To Olivia” less effective than a screenplay weighing its dramatic values in the opposite direction. Perseverance, if you are one of those, has potential to reward you. 

At Dendy, Palace Electric and Hoyts Belconnen