‘Reed’: An Engrossing, Taut Ride

“Hollow Reed” is one of those intelligent, understated traditional-style films in which fairly early on you think you know where it’s headed. Even so, you can be caught up in this taut, excellent British picture because it has such an acute grasp of the twists and turns of human psychology and emotions and becomes loaded with a deeply involving, increasingly harrowing suspense.

In his British film debut, Martin Donovan plays an English physician, Martyn Wyatt, in a sizable unidentified city in England. He has settled into a solid relationship with another man, Tom (Ian Hart), in a small apartment, but has only limited access to his 9-year-old son Oliver (Sam Bould). Oliver lives with his mother, Hannah (Joely Richardson), and her lover Frank (Jason Flemyng), an architect who recently moved into their spacious, airy home.

The film opens with the boy--a bad cut along his right eyebrow--streaking through the night to the home of his father, who does not have the right to keep his son overnight. According to the boy, he was attacked by another child, but when Martyn finds this not to be true and when Oliver later ends up with a broken hand, the father becomes suspicious. Martyn’s lawyer tells him he must on all accounts keep his cool--but he can’t.

Marked by insight and compassion for Martyn and the vulnerability of his status as a gay parent, “Hollow Reed” quite possibly gains special dimension because it was both written and directed by women--Paula Milne and Angela Pope, respectively.

One evidence of this is that, unlikable as Hannah becomes, she also is understandable, which is absolutely crucial if the film is to work. Here’s a woman of pleasant if unexceptional looks and equally unexceptional intellect. Her self-confidence has been undermined by the failure of her marriage, and she’s carried away by her hot new romance. She’s enraged and embittered at her ex-husband, one of those men who repress their homosexuality only to marry disastrously.

While one by one the adults around him behave recklessly--and worse--Oliver struggles to survive, keeping his own counsel for good reason. (One nifty touch: Oliver, profoundly wary of the world, has rigged a little cart, like a toy, that he pulls around the halls at the top of his home’s open staircase. He has attached a rearview mirror to it for surveillance; he also frequently peeks through Venetian blinds.)

If Milne has written roles of exceptional depth and dimension for the actors, Pope in turn has directed them to maximum impact. Bould is impeccable in what had to have been a very difficult role for him. Richardson wisely doesn’t ask us to try to like Hannah, and Hart (memorable as John Lennon in “Backbeat”) and Flemyng are similarly first-rate.

Donovan is a marvel of versatility; in a comparatively short time, he’s come a long way from the quirky world of Hal Hartley films to his prize-winning portrayal of the sensitive suitor Nicole Kidman should have gone for in “The Portrait of a Lady,” to this limning of a gay man facing the very real prospect of losing both his son and lover.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: It contains scenes of child abuse, some nudity and lovemaking, some strong language.

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‘Hollow Reed’

Martin Donovan: Martyn Wyatt

Sam Bould: Oliver Wyatt

Joely Richardson: Hannah Wyatt

Jason Flemyng: Frank Donally

Ian Hart: Tom Dixon

A Cinepix release. Director Angela Pope. Producer Elizabeth Karlsen. Executive producers Nik Powell, Stephen Woolley. Screenplay by Paula Milne. Cinematographer Remi Adefarasin. Editor Sue Wyatt. Costumes Pam Downe. Music Anne Dudley. Production designer Stuart Walker. Art directors Diane Dancklefsen, Charmian Adams. Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869; Town Center, 3199 Park Center Drive, Costa Mesa, (714) 751-4184.