Anand Tucker is good with actors under emotional pressure and careful about how their surroundings look. We rate the unease he helps create in Red Riding, though his storytelling can be less assured than his staging.
Fi1m perspective
In Red Riding (2009), another police investigation brings little reassurance: corruption already feels like ordinary business. Tucker directs the final instalment of a series also directed by Julian Jarrold and James Marsh, so the credit is shared. We were disturbed by how routine the violence felt, something people had to live around rather than expect to see put right. Tucker’s lighter visual approach works here; the series has already given us enough reason to dread what an investigation might uncover.
His breakthrough, Hilary and Jackie (1998), dealt with sibling and artistic rivalry, subjects suited to his interest in emotionally complicated performances. Shopgirl (2005), adapted from Steve Martin’s novella, marked a move into major Hollywood production. And When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007), from Blake Morrison’s memoir, returned him to family experience. His return to features with The Critic (2023) brought a thriller set in 1930s London.
Tucker storyboards extensively, using colour and camera movement to distinguish periods and emotional states. His collaborators include cinematographer David Higgs and screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, and he favours returning department heads, minimal rehearsal and few takes. The actors are trusted to handle difficult feelings, an approach that serves his biographical work well. The reservation is visible in Hilary and Jackie: shifts in perspective and self-conscious visual technique can make the drama feel overwrought.
Our enthusiasm for Red Riding survives a substantial reservation about the plotting. The acting and atmosphere make its Yorkshire convincing enough to keep us watching through a story that is sometimes needlessly difficult to follow. We do not need every uncertainty cleared up, but there are stretches where the effort of following the investigation competes with the force of the drama. Choose it for an evening when nobody plans to talk over it.
Biography
Anand Tucker is a film director and producer based in London. Born in Bangkok in 1963 to an Indian father and German mother, he moved to the United Kingdom aged 18 after growing up in Hong Kong. He began his career directing factual television programming and documentaries, including a BAFTA-winning profile of Anne Rice.
Tucker directed the feature films Hilary and Jackie (1998), Shopgirl (2005), And When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007) and Leap Year (2010). He directed the 1983 instalment of the Red Riding series in 2009. He has also worked as a producer on films including Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) and co-owns the production company Seven Stories.
