G8 Summit & "The Girl"

One or two days before the current G8 summit got underway in Gleneagle, Scotland, I saw a long segment of clips from HBO’s original movie, “The Girl in the Café,” shown on a CNN newscast. That’s unusual, I thought. Then the announcer explained what had just been seen came from a CNN’s “sister channel” presentation (which my husband and I enjoyed the previous evening).

Not a bad idea at all. “The Girl in the Café,” written by Richard Curtis, is one of the best things I’ve seen on television in a long time. It’s romantic, poignant, amusing and politically relevant. The plot involves an unusually shy government official who’s preparing for the G8 meeting (this one scheduled in Iceland). On impulse, he decides to invite a woman he’s just met to attend with him. Little does he know that his unassuming guest has an important agenda of her own.

Bill Nighy, so brash as the fading rock star in “Love Actually,” changes gears and delivers a brilliant, understated performance as the official in question, and Kelly Macdonald (Peter Pan in “Finding Neverland”) is full of surprises as the enigmatic “girl” who risks everything “just in case she can make a difference.”

If you missed this one, check your TV schedule to find out when it’s playing again. Then sit back and be enlightened as well as entertained.