MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Jonathan Dore Stephen Poliakoff seems to have got into a bit of a rut: although he is rightly praised for creating characters with interesting quirks in their history and personality, almost all his recent dramas seem to revolve around very wealthy -- or at least socially advantaged -- people, usually eccentric, for whom giving or attending parties, or talking about parties they used to attend, or remembering overhearing other people reminisce about parties they attended, forms an improbably large proportion of their waking thoughts. Frankly it's beginning to seem formulaic. With all this partying, perhaps Mr P. needs to stay in more?Here the eccentric, hugely wealthy party-giver is Paul Reynolds, who develops a fixation with employing, then serially disappointing, a bright and efficient young secretary, Lizzie. It's insinuated that he has business genius and a farsighted understanding of emerging trends, but we're not really given enough evidence to tell if that aura is really deserved. Written in 2004/5 (I think?), Paul's late-80s prediction that bookshops with integral cafés were the big thing of the future might have looked prescient -- a prescience the writer seems to contrast with Lizzie's later employer's crash in the dot-com bubble. Yet half a decade on, with Borders gone and Waterstones just hanging on, who can say that big bookshops with cafés were the canny choice, compared to internet retailing? The future has turned round and bitten the author back.Paul is presented as enigmatic, but that largely seems down to the deep-frozen glint in Damien Lewis's eye, which could equally be interpreted as psychotic. Given the air of perpetual menace that surrounds him -- at least from the catastrophic garden party onwards -- it's hard to believe that Lizzie would even have agreed to have lunch with him again, let alone offered him work. His motivation is utterly opaque: What made him want to trash his own party? What made him indifferent -- even seemingly happy about -- the destruction of Lizzie's and his own hard work on his various projects during the party? What made him deliberately undermine Lizzie at the agency by doing no work for 5 months? Once his money had gone, frankly, why would any of his former associates give such a man the time of day?

peter-c-booth One of th finest modern dramas enabling world class participants to push at the envelope at all stages of the play. Tha great bard would have been proud. Underlying the glorious production were performances of breathtaking beauty and honesty from the two leading players. Jodhi in particular played the sexually charged and profoundly confused "innocent" perfectly. The bubbling sexual tension brought the viewer closer to the set at every scene and created an atmosphere of chaos that was always fulfilled but in an unexpected way. In many ways it stands along side a modern day recreation of the Government Inspector (or perhaps a Comedy or Errors), a production that effortlessly achieves its goal of taking apart the pillars of accepted society and replaces them with an almost innocence of child like hope and opportunism (tinged with some unwanted and unforeseen brutality). A worlds class production. Well done to all involved.

conniea1-1 I enjoyed Friends and Crocodiles and strongly suggest viewing it more than once. More nuances are then perceptible which fleshes out the story line that otherwise is convoluted and can be confusing. Both Paul and Lizzie demonstrate an extreme level of self control, although each of a different nature and each exhibited in vastly different ways. Lewis and May are exceptionally well suited for those two roles and do an excellent job of keeping the viewer focused on their personalities and the theme, rather than have attention wander off on other characters or subplots. The interplay between the two of them can easily be viewed as signifying human interaction in areas other than the business world.

Geoff Mendoza The lavish scenes and multitude of props gave the impression that this would be a first class production but I felt that there was very little story or plot taking place. The main characters took up so much of the time that it was hard to remember who all the other characters were. Perhaps twice we were shown what time period we were in but there were many occasions when I simply didn't know how much further in time the story had moved. If the main leads had aged it might have helped.And where did all those children come from in such a short space of time? What happened to all of Paul's money? What was the purpose of the character who could answer any question (when he clearly couldn't)? Most of the acting was of a high standard but at the end I was left with "So what?"