Albatross

Albatross

Albatross is the story of seventeen year old force-of-nature Emilia (Jessica Brown Findlay) and her entrance into the life of a dysfunctional family, running a small hotel on the South Coast of England.

Beth Fischer (Felicity Jones), also seventeen, is cramming for her A-Levels in a desperate bid to escape to university, whilst dad Jonathan (Sebastian Koch), once a best-selling author, is suffering from writer’s block much to the annoyance of his frustrated wife Joa (Julia Ormond) who runs the hotel and laments the promising acting career she once left behind. 

Jonathan sees promise in Emelia and begins to tutor her, but their relationship quickly crosses the pupil-teacher line and they embark on a love affair that threatens the friendship Emelia has with Beth and, inevitably tears the family apart.

To celebrate the February 6th DVD release of Albatross, let’s have a look back on some of the classic ‘inappropriate’ sexual relationships on film.

- The classic Harold and Maude explores the friendship and eventual sexual relationship between the very young Harold (Bud Curt) and the much older Maude (Ruth Gordon).

Harold is head over heels while Maude is set on living life to the max and setting her own death date.

- The more recent critically-acclaimed Fish Tank is a drama about Mia (Katie Jarvis), an extremely volatile 15 year old who fancies Connor (Michael Fassbender), her mother’s boyfriend.

The two find themselves alone one evening, and after a sexual encounter Mia’s obsession with Connor heightens with film taking a dramatically scary turn.

- Notes On A Scandal is the 2006 thriller starring Cate Blanchett as teacher Sheba who is intimate with young pupil Steven, played by Andrew Simpson.

The film also stars Dame Judi Dench as co-worker of Sheba who is discovers the affair and threatens Sheba to end this or she’ll tell all. Needless to say, Sheba can’t resist Steven.

- The coming of age story of a middle-aged man, American Beauty is performed beautifully by Kevin Spacey as Lester, whose deep infatuation with his young daughter’s best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari) leads to a sexual encounter that leaves both startled, as well as viewers.

- An Education is the story of 16 year old Jenny (Carey Mulligan) whose charmed by the dashing conman David (Peter Sarsgaard).

David uses sex against the virgin Jenny and we watch this coming-of-age tale about a young girl having to confront her choices after a brief relationship with the charmer.

Albatross is available on DVD from 6th February courtesy of Entertainment One.