''Shadow Dancer'' is a 2012 political thriller film directed by James Marsh and scripted by

Tom Bradby Thomas Matthew Bradby (born 13 January 1967) is a British journalist and novelist who has presented in the '' ITV News at Ten'' since 2015. He was previously a political editor for ITV News from 2005 to 2015, and presented '' The Agenda with To ...

, based on his 1998 novel of the same name. The film premiered at the

2012 Sundance Film Festival The 2012 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 19 until January 29, 2012 in Park City, Utah. 64 short films were selected for the festival from 7,675 submissions, including 27 international shorts from 3,592 submissions. Non-competitio ...

, and it was screened out of competition at the

62nd Berlin International Film Festival The 62nd annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 9 to 19 February 2012. British film director Mike Leigh was the president of the jury. The first five films to be screened in the competition were announced on 19 December 2011. Am ...

in February 2012.

Plot

In the opening scene, set in 1973,

the Troubles The Troubles () were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it began in the late 1960s and is usually deemed t ...

in Northern Ireland result in the death of Collette's younger brother when they are children. The film jumps forward to 1993

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. After a failed bombing attack in London, Collette is arrested and offered a choice by an MI5 officer, Mac, who is assigned as her handler. Either she spends 25 years in jail, thus losing everything she loves, including her young son, or, she becomes an informant for

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

, spying on her own family. Collette agrees to inform. In return, Mac offers her a new identity after working for MI5. Soon Mac learns that his superior Kate Fletcher is using Collette to protect Fletcher's own

mole Mole (or Molé) may refer to: Animals * Mole (animal) or "true mole" * Golden mole, southern African mammals * Marsupial mole Marsupial moles, the Notoryctidae family, are two species of highly specialized marsupial mammals that are found i ...

inside the Irish organization. Mac tries to find the identity of this informer to protect Collette. Additionally, a romantic interest develops between Mac and Collette, evidenced by a passionate kiss shared at their weekly meeting at a quay. Meanwhile, Kevin, an IRA enforcer, realizing a mole exists within Collette's family, gets closer and closer to Collette. Mac's superiors refuse to remove her from danger. Finally, Kevin concludes that either Collette or her brother Connor is the mole. Gerry, Collette's oldest brother, gives passive consent for Kevin to interrogate Connor and Collette. Connor is tortured, but gives no information, and just as Connor is about to be executed, Kevin calls it off. At the same time, Mac breaks into secret archives and determines that Fletcher's mole is Collette's mother, confirming that he has been used surreptitiously by his superiors, who were only interested in Collette as a shield for her mother's treachery. Mac makes a phone call to Collette's mother, informing her that the IRA will be coming to pick up Collette, and that Collette was recruited to protect her. However, when Kevin arrives to pick up Collette, her mother goes outside and enters Kevin's car. Later, her dead body is found, showing that Kevin had determined the mother was the mole. Mac makes a phone call to Collette and apparently acting alone, outside the permission of his superiors, informs her that he can get her and her son out of Northern Ireland. Mac arrives at their usual meeting spot the quay, but Collette does not come. When he answers his car phone, the car explodes, killing him. The film ends with Collette and her son getting into a car with her brother Connor. Connor tells Collette that "it's done" and they leave.

Cast

Andrea Riseborough Andrea Louise Riseborough (born 20 November 1981) is an English actress. She made her film debut with a small part in ''Venus'' (2006), and has since appeared in more prominent roles in '' Brighton Rock'' (2010), '' W.E.'' (2011), '' Shadow Dan ...

as Collette McVeigh *

Clive Owen Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for playing the lead role in the ITV series '' Chancer'' from 1990 to 1991. He received critical acclaim for his work in the film '' Close ...

as Mac *

Gillian Anderson Gillian Leigh Anderson ( ; born August 9, 1968) is an American actress, writer, and activist. She is best known for her roles as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the sci-fi series ''The X-Files'' (1993–2002; 2016–2018), Lily Bart in the dr ...

as Kate Fletcher *

Aidan Gillen Aidan Murphy (born 1967 or 1968), better known as Aidan Gillen (), is an Irish actor. He is known for his roles as Stuart Alan Jones in ''Queer as Folk (British TV series), Queer as Folk'' (1999–2000); Tommy Carcetti in ''The Wire'' (2004–20 ...

as Gerry McVeigh *

Domhnall Gleeson Domhnall Gleeson (; born 12 May 1983) is an Irish actor and screenwriter. The son of actor Brendan Gleeson, he studied media arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He began his career by directing and writing several short films, and garne ...

as Connor McVeigh *

Brid Brennan Brigid or Brigit ( , ; meaning 'exalted one'),Campbell, MikBehind the Name.See also Xavier Delamarre, ''brigantion / brigant-'', in ''Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise'' (Éditions Errance, 2003) pp. 87–88: "Le nom de la sainte irlandaise ''B ...

as Ma * David Wilmot as Kevin Mulville *

Michael McElhatton Michael McElhatton (born 12 September 1963) is an Irish actor and writer. He is best known for playing the role of Roose Bolton in the HBO series ''Game of Thrones'' from the second to the sixth season (2012–2016). Other credits include '' I ...

as Liam Hughes * Stuart Graham as Ian Gilmour * Martin McCann as Brendan O'Shea

Reception

, the film holds approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on reviews with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "A tense, thought-provoking thriller, ''Shadow Dancer'' is bolstered by sensitive direction from James Marsh and a terrific performance from Andrea Riseborough." According to

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which sampled the opinions of 23 critics and calculated an average score of 71 out of 100, the film received "generally favorable reviews". Film magazine ''

Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

'', giving it a score of 4 out of 5 stars, called it "an intelligent and emotionally charged spy drama". ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' called it "a slow-burning but brilliant thriller about an IRA sympathiser forced to become an informant by MI5".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shadow Dancer 2012 films 2010s spy films 2012 thriller films British spy films British thriller films Films from Northern Ireland Irish thriller films Films about dysfunctional families Films about siblings Films about the Irish Republican Army Films about The Troubles (Northern Ireland) Films set in 1973 Films set in 1993 Films set in Belfast Films set in London Films shot in Ireland Films shot in England Films based on British novels Films based on thriller novels Films directed by James Marsh BBC Film films 2012 drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films Paramount Pictures films Films scored by Dickon Hinchliffe English-language thriller films