Dr Jean Markham returns to the town she left as a teenager to take over her late father’s medical practice. When a school-yard scuffle lands young Charlie in her surgery, she invites him to visit the hives in her garden and tell his secrets to the bees. The new friendship between the boy and the beekeeper brings his mother Lydia into Jean’s world. In the sanctuary of the doctor’s house the two women find themselves drawn to one another in a way that Jean recognises and fears, and Lydia could never have expected. But, in 1950’s small-town Britain, their new secret can’t stay hidden forever.
Contrasting magic-realism with the gruff and tough local life, this is a gentle exploration of 1950s womanhood as an identity dictated by men, which resulted in unthinkable traumas.
Wednesday 19th February
106 min
MA15+
Film Festival
