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To Olivia Photos

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Movie Info

The story of the tribulations behind best-selling children's novelist Roald Dahl's marriage to Academy Award winning actress Patricia Neal. The somewhat unlikely pair - an in-demand Hollywood actress and a burgeoning children's author - find their relationship put to the test, and ultimately strengthened, by tragic events. Set between New York, England and Los Angeles in the early 60s, it tells the tale of Dahl's struggles while writing some of his most famous works and Neal's return to acting with Hud.

Genre:

drama
Original Language:

English (United Kingdom)
Director:

John Hay
Producer:

Adrian Politowski, Donall McCusker
Writer:

John Hay, David Logan
Runtime:

1h 50m
Production Co:

Align, Goldcrest Films International, Atticus Pictures

Cast & Crew

Hugh Bonneville
Roald Dahl

Keeley Hawes
Patricia Neal

Sam Heughan
Paul Newman

Conleth Hill
Marty Ritt

Geoffrey Palmer
Geoffrey Fisher

Michael Jibson
Pete Perkins

Show all Cast & Crew

Critic Reviews for To Olivia

All Critics (19) | Top Critics (9) | Fresh (11) | Rotten (8)

A contrived and cliché-filled biopic which uses all the tricks in the book usually associated with these kinds of productions.

February 26, 2021 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Linda Marric
The Jewish Chronicle
To its credit, the film finds a note of something stark for the tragedy.

February 24, 2021 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Danny Leigh
Financial Times
Hugh Bonneville (Dahl) and Keeley Hawes (Neal) are extremely watchable. They're heavily hampered, however, by a whimsical script that often feels like propaganda for the problematic Dahl brand...

February 23, 2021 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Charlotte O'Sullivan
London Evening Standard
Like all aspects of this sorry effort, the subject matter deserved better.

February 20, 2021 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Kevin Maher
Times (UK)
True, grief is universal - but To Olivia never embraces the fact that stories draw their power from specificity. It's what makes them feel real.

February 20, 2021 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Clarisse Loughrey
Independent (UK)
John Hay's film just about gets by on committed performances and dusty rural ambience.

February 19, 2021 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Donald Clarke
Irish Times
A film about grief inevitably touches some people deeply, but this is more about the psychology of loss than the feeling of it.

March 3, 2021 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Aine O'Connor
Sunday Independent (Ireland)
With the brightly engaging tone familiar in British period biopics, this sharply well-made film explores the momentous life of Roald Dahl and Patricia Neal.

February 26, 2021 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
An intriguing and poignant portrait of grief, even if it does feel rather lacking in the sharp edges that could've made it truly memorable.

February 22, 2021 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Tom Beasley
Flickering Myth
If it's true that we all become stories in the end, let's hope they end up better told than this one.

February 22, 2021 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

Matt Wolf
The Arts Desk
To Olivia is the film that puts us right on all fronts.

February 22, 2021 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Matthew Bond
The Mail on Sunday (UK)
The movie is fairly brief, not even coming in at 90 minutes, which does not seem a fair enough amount of time to cover the events of those tumultuous years.

February 19, 2021 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Jenny Desborough
Daily Express (UK)