Ladies in Lavender (2004)

Rather a strange choice for the first film to be written and directed by the actor Charles Dance is this fairly slim tale of two elderly sisters living on the Cornish coast in the period up to the outbreak of World War Two and how they find a Polish seaman washed up on their beach.  The saving grace is that the sisters are played by Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.  Now Dench might be the one who is nominated for awards non-stop nowadays, but if I had to make the choice, I would choose to watch Smith until the cows come home.  She's a quirky screen presence who achieves more with the odd look or sneer than lesser actors do with their entire body.  It turns out that their find whom they nurse back to health and whom, one suspects, Dench in particular would like to keep forever, is a gifted violinist and he is lured away at the chance of furthering this career.  All perfectly pleasant and watchable, but like I said at the outset, a rather odd choice from Mr. Dance.