The Whisperers

An elderly woman with vivid delusions is brought to life by a magnetic Edith Evans, and an achingly beautiful score.

  • Director

    Bryan Forbes

  • With

    Edith Evans, Eric Portman, Harry Baird, Nanette Newman

  • UK 1967. 106min

  • Digital

  • Certificate

    PG

Bryan Forbes’ film about loneliness, paranoia and poverty, set in a bleakly monochrome Oldham, could hardly have been less ‘summer of love’. Barry’s score is affecting and super-minimal, with dripping taps, crying babies and acres of silence behind it. The cast, including cameos from Leonard Rossiter, Ronald Fraser and Michael Robbins, is almost wholly mean-spirited, although Edith Evans was nominated for an Oscar for her striking performance.