Stars: Ray Winstone, Tilda Swinton, Kate Ashfield, Lara Belmont, Freddie Cunliffe, Aisling O'Sullivan, Colin Farrell

Director: Tim Roth

Summary: Tom moves from his family home to Devon to live with his father and sister. There he discovers a terrible family secret.

Tim Roth's directorial debut, based on the novel by Alexander Stuart (who adapted the screenplay), is not for the faint of heart. When a seemingly normal family moves from London to rural Devon, 15-year-old Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) stumbles into a shocking secret concerning his father (Ray Winstone) and 17-year-old sister, Jessie (Lara Belmont). Afraid of breaking up the family and upsetting his mother (Tilda Swinton), who has just given birth to a baby girl, he crawls into a shell and remains there, confused and alienated. Eventually, the situation boils over, and the truth is exposed. Roth shows that he has the ability to draw extremely emotional performances from Winstone and Swinton, as well as from newcomers Belmont and Cunliffe, who provide the film with its true heart. THE WAR ZONE is a brilliantly harsh and tragic family drama.

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As unflinching and bleak as it is beautiful, Tim Roth's directorial debut The War Zoneis remarkably accomplished filmmaking. Adapted by Alexander Stuart from his own novel, the film centres on a family that has just moved from London to the wind-swept seaside during winter. The relative isolation soon reveals an ongoing incestuous relationship between the working-class father (Ray Winstone) and his 17-year-old-daughter, Jessie. The middle-class mother (Tilda Swinton) has just given birth to their third child and desperately avoids knowing the truth, leaving Tom, the younger brother, with the horrific responsibility of exposing the family secret. Fearless in its hard-fought depiction of incest, The War Zonepulls no punches; this vivid portrayal of abuse within a family and the scathed consciousness that results is not for the faint of heart. True to his theatre background, Roth doesn't explain how or where such brutal choices were first taken, choosing rather to let the actors bear the ambiguities and anguish of a terrible knowledge in the their body language.--Fionn Meade, Amazon.com

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Subtitles:	English
Year:	1999
Release Date:	May 1, 2002
Runtime:	95 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C C D 9003
Label:	Film Four Distributors
Keywords:	War, General, Zone, Wide, Screen, Drama, Tim, Roth's
Genre:	Drama