Premiering at this year’s London International Film Festival at the Genesis Cinema in East London, writer, producer and director Tony Germinario’s THE PRICE FOR SILENCE is about as timely an affair as you will get in these enlightened – and more PC than ever – times of reflection.
Kira Flynn (Lynn Mancinelli) is a wild card of a girl, alcoholic and drug-happy at times, who has to return home to the family unit, presided over by her mother Sheila (Kristin Carey) and brother Lucas (Emrhys Cooper), when her troubled father dies. Kira’s free-spirit awakens to a greater extent when she and Lucas go out on a bender and meet some old high-school friends, notably Darren (Ronald Austin Jr.) with whom she decides to have a quickie in the car park whilst the funeral service is going on.
Kira is not happy when local big businessman and close family acquaintance Richard Davenport (Richard Thomas) is invited to the service by Sheila, given the apparent help and support she alleges he has provided the family in the light of her father’s passing.
Davenport’s desire to help the family cope with the sadness inherent in their present situation masks darker intentions and secrets from the past – and this is a catalyst for Kira’s old emotional and psychological wounds to re-open themselves….
THE PRICE FOR SILENCE is one of the most powerful independent dramas of recent years and hinges on some terrific ensemble playing, held together by the luminous Mancinelli – who co-wrote the story with Germinario – lighting up the screen as the gutsy but vulnerable Kira
However, real praise is forthcoming for the magnificent Richard Thomas, whose decades of varied film and theatre work has prepared him for more creative and mature choices.
In THE PRICE FOR SILENCE, he is an absolute revelation, given his worldwide fame as the sensitive John Boy in the classic series THE WALTONS and to sci-fi fans of an earlier generation in BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980), legendary indie producer Roger Corman’s space-age remake of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN – which is also notable for helping to launch the careers of James Cameron and the late James Horner, for whom that film was one of his first scores.
Thomas electrifies the screen as the businessman with good intentions, but even grander (and perhaps more selfish) desires to increase his hold on the local community Kira and her family inhabit. It’s a darkly humorous and gritty indie drama – and all those on screen deserve to go on to bigger and better things.
A surprising indie gem.
