Antonia Campbell-Hughes can make a troubled character seem ordinary enough to know, then quietly unsettling. Her vulnerability keeps us watching Kelly + Victor, even as the writing leaves her with too little to play.
Fi1m perspective
In the intimate scenes of Kelly + Victor (2012), Antonia Campbell-Hughes makes Kelly seem both vulnerable and faintly threatening. Julian Morris makes Victor’s attraction credible, and together they supply the closeness that Kieran Evans’s thin romance needs. We cared about the couple because their intimacy was persuasive, but the accumulating misery eventually exhausted our sympathy. It is a sensitively acted film with too little character to sustain it.
Campbell-Hughes works through small changes of expression and physical bearing, inviting us to attend to what a character cannot readily say. That approach needs a screenplay willing to give her a life beyond her difficulties. Kelly is short of ordinary interests and habits, and a persuasive attraction cannot make up for their absence. We admire the acting here without recommending the film as a whole.
The route to these roles began in comedy, notably as Jack Dee’s daughter in Lead Balloon (2006–2011). She had already played Abigail in Jane Campion’s Bright Star (2009), a film we recommend readily. Our praise there belongs chiefly to Abbie Cornish, so it would be misleading to use that film to make large claims for Campbell-Hughes. The lead in The Other Side of Sleep (2011) began the shift towards darker drama, followed by Kelly + Victor and 3096 Days (2013).
Writing and directing have given her more say in the material. She co-wrote Cordelia (2019) with director Adrian Shergold and played twins Cordelia and Caroline. It Is In Us All (2022), which she wrote and appeared in, was her feature directorial debut. Its emphasis on visual and sensory storytelling, with characters who are difficult to read, continues an interest evident in her acting. We would welcome a role that gives her as much everyday life to play as distress.
Biography
Antonia Campbell-Hughes is a Northern Irish actress, writer and director. She was born in Derry in 1982.
She began her career as a fashion designer while in her teens, studying at art school in Dublin, before moving into acting. Early television work included the comedy series Lead Balloon. Film roles include Abigail in Jane Campion’s Bright Star (2009), Emmy in Albert Nobbs (2011) and the title role of Natascha Kampusch in 3096 Days (2013).
She was named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2011 and received the Berlinale Shooting Star award in 2012. Her debut feature as writer and director, the thriller It Is In Us All, was released in 2022.
