Wearing a fairly convincing fake schnoz, Downton Abbey patriarch Hugh Bonneville becomes Roald Dahl, the beloved British children’s author who created such terms as “scrumdiddlyumptious”, “Oompa Loompa”, and “snozzberry” (as in, “the snozzberries taste like snozzberries”).
Bonneville and Keeley Hawes star as Dahl and his glamorous actress wife Patricia Neal in To Olivia, a heartbreaking biopic that’ll get you closer to the Matilda author’s personal story of grief than ever before. If you want to view Dahl-fan paradise, simply visit cinemas from May 5: that’s when To Olivia is released into Australian theatres.
Known for his anarchically silly children’s fiction, Dahl captures the imagination of British kids and the confusion of their parents, one such man mistakenly calling his latest book “Johnny and the Giant Pineapple”. Dahl’s matinee idol wife Patricia Neal is just as acclaimed—”but a story can have many pages”, and the loving couple are left reeling when their daughter “Livvy” passes away.
The trailer below shows the famous pair working hard on their own projects to distract from the agony of grief. No prizes for guessing whether this biopic will end on a hopeful note, as the clips lay out a bit obviously: upon hearing that his newest book has become a hugely popular success, Dahl gently says, “I rather think she would’ve like it as well.”
Any particularly avid readers of Dahl will know that the meek child protagonist of The BFG is based on the late Olivia, who died of measles in 1962. The book is dedicated to her, and ends with the orphaned character Sophie getting to live happily ever after in a fantastical world with the friendly giant, clearly Dahl’s analogue of himself. Like the BFG, the physically towering Dahl sees himself as an author of dreams, and a protector of children.
If that doesn’t bring a swashboggling tear to your eye, watching To Olivia certainly will. It’s based on Stephen Michael Shearer’s biography Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life, meaning that Neal will likely get a similiar amount of screentime to her imaginative British husband—including scenes of her working with Paul Newman (Sam Heughan) for her Oscar-winning role in Hud.
