No Night Is Too Long (2002) – Gay Film Review

A BBC Adaptation of Barabara Vine's Gay Interest Thriller Novel

Jul 6, 2009

Lee Williams and Marc Warren delight in thriller No Night Is Too Long, a dark film adaptation of Barabara Vine's novel about a passionate gay relationship gone wrong.

Bored of his university girlfriend, the exceptionally good looking Tim Cornish (the seductive Lee Williams), decides to try a gay relationship with an equally entrancing man, a professor at his university, Dr. Ivo Steadman (the always brilliant Marc Warren). But their passion quickly boils over into a dangerous game of wills, and Tim can’t shake Ivo's possessive advances no matter how hard he tries; thus the story of gay interest film No Night Is Too Long is set up.

Plot Synopsis For Gay Themed TV Movie No Night Is Too Long

Feeling trapped, Tim finds comfort in the arms of a woman he meets at a hotel. Unbeknownst to him, that woman is Ivo’s sister Isabel (the sophisticated Mikela J. Mikael). Whilst on a teaching trip to a remote Alaskan island, Ivo discovers this betrayal. They brawl and Ivo hits his head on an outcrop of jagged rocks; Tim, believing Ivo to be dead, covers up the fight and retreats back to the UK. But all is not as it seems.

Drawn by the news of her brother’s death, Isabel comes to the village where Ivo and Tim lived and tracks Tim down hoping to rekindle their affair. On seeing her, however, Tim breaks down, realising, at last, the awful truth: a man as beautiful as he is, he can not love any other person, gay or straight, man or woman, but himself, making No Night Is Too Long a dark and ironic made-for-TV film.

Both Lee Williams and Marc Warren demonstrate passion and commitment in creating a fully physical gay relationship of many subtle layers and emotions. Especially good is Lee Williams as he laces his character with a kind of magnetism that draws in the viewer and makes the plot of No Night Is Too Long convincing.

This is needed as, although it becomes obvious in hindsight that Ivo is, in fact, psychotically fixated on the youngster, the initial draw binding the sophisticated Ivo to the brattish Tim, who sees the gay relationship as a simple expression of his own defiant nature, could have otherwise been a fundamental problem for No Night Is Too Long, but thankfully this pitfall is avoided by the gay interest drama.

Marc Warren also deserves his share of praise. He is often cast either as a flash rich boy (Hustle) or a sweet, sensitive hero (Doctor Who), but here his malevolence is appealing, and his gentle voice, which pitches down as his mood darkens, clues the audience in to undertones that a lesser actor might have failed to convey, making Warren a force of sinister appeal in No Night Is Too Long.

No Night Is Too Long – Barbara Vine’s Novel Changed for TV Film Adaptation

Tom Shankland directs proceedings in No Night Is Too Long adequately, and Kev Elyot's adaptation of Barabara Vine’s novel remains true to the original story without restricting the film version itself, which is quite distinct and makes its own choices. In the Barabara Vine novel of No Night is Too Long, for instance, the possibility of Tim having a relationship with Isabel is left open. This is not so in the film.

In fact, the film divorces itself from this possibility almost completely. Tim does not see Isobel at the end of No Night Is Too Long because he is fundamentally incapable of loving someone other than himself, but in so doing makes the only unselfish gesture he can in rejecting and thus saving Isabel from heartache, and in this regard this gay interest film version of No Night Is Too Long takes its main character a step further than the Barbara Vine novel and makes the entire story that much more compelling.

Ultimately, No Night Is Too Long is a rich and engrossing film. It verges into soap opera territory at times, but great acting and otherwise clever scripting (as well as some emotively clinical cinematography) enliven and invigorate the plot to make this little known film a staple for any gay themed film collection, even if it was made for BBC TV who perhaps never conceived it could have such impact.

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