Ronnie Leahy

The Wyatts wish to educate their children at home, but the education authorities have other ideas. Moving between 1969 and 1980, we see how this affects the various individuals and attitudes.

An aged art connoisseur (Beaumont) and his young female neighbour (Coles), who has a job posing naked in a club, meet and exist in fantasy and reality. Although this raises certain much-discussed questions about the nature of representation, and about the construction of narrative and daydreams in films, 'Phoelix' tends to treat these as just pretty and pertinent issues, opting instead for a mannered concentration on detail.