Elizabeth Banks has one of her best roles to date in A Mistake, the New Zealand-set medical drama that had its world premiere Friday night at the Tribeca Festival.
It might be easy to forget Banks is one of the best actors out there especially since she is known also these days as a director (most recently Cocaine Bear) and even game show host (Press Your Luck), but as her most recent acting work in films like The Beanie Bubble and Call Jane also again prove she has real acting chops and always had. Therefore it is nice to see her sink her teeth into a major lead role in an intense but understated and dedicated turn as a brilliant and confident surgeon who finds one routine mistake during an operation spirals out of control,and in the process her life becomes a mess making her question just exactly who she really is, as well as her connection to the human beings who surround her.
Based on Carl Shuken’s 2019 best seller, writer/director Christine Jeffs (Sunshine Cleaning) delivers a grim but no-nonsense drama centered on this extremely talented surgeon named Elizabeth Taylor (Banks) at an Auckland hospital who unexpectedly starts falling down a rabbit hole during what was intended to be a routine Lapanoscopic procedure for a very sick young woman, Lisa (Acacia O’Connor). It turns into an emergency when her young and inexperienced Registrar , Richard Whitehead (RIchard Crouchley) fumbles a simple maneuver involving sticking the last of three Trocars, bursting the Lumbar Artery in the process.
Recovering from this with her exceptional skill, Taylor tells Richard to skip the details and just simply inform Lisa’s anxious parents that the surgery went well. Richard unfortunately is deeply affected by this mistake but follows orders. The next day though Taylor gets word that Lisa has died in ICU with complications from Septicemia, something she might have died from anyway but with their knowledge of that one mistake these surgeons still second guess their actions.
All of this causes friction in Taylor’s relationship with nurse, colleague, and now lover, Robin ( an excellent Mickey Sumner), and with the slick head of surgery Andrew McGrath (Simon McBurney) who wants to shut down any potential lawsuits or scandal and gives Taylor essentially a script to follow in explaining that the operation was not the cause of death. This knaws slowly at Taylor who, having to defend all this, eventually emerges with a renewed conscience sense of morality. Meanwhile the dominoes in her life continue to fall, first in her home where she is knocking out a wall to get to some troublesome Borer Beetles, and then spraying the place, but forgetting she left behind Atticus, the elderly dog she was dogsitting for friend Jess (Fern Sutherland). When she races back it is nearly too late as she takes him to the vet who recommends he be euthanized. As if this wasn’t enough, especially with the unforgiving reaction when she informs Jess of the death of the pet she was entrusted with, another tragedy borne out of these events knocks her for a loop.
This dark, but humane, drama may not be for everyone. It isn’t exactly a fun watch, but the acting is superb across the board, starting with Banks who sports a subtle but convincing accent. I do have to say a name change for her character would have been recommended since it is distracting to have her sharing the name of a cinema icon like Elizabeth Taylor (although never highlighted in the script), not to mention it is also the first name of Banks. McBurney is excellent as the unlikable Mc Grath who is thinking the organization he works for comes first over humanity. Rena Owen and Matthew Sunderland do a lot with their brief scenes as Lisa’s distraught parents. Crouchley also gains our sympathy for the internal and external trauma of his mistake, an act for which Taylor later takes the blame.
Jeff’s screenplay is as measured as her unflashy direction, perfect for a slow-burning story about a tragic incident with so many tentacles affecting a small circle of human beings caught up in it.
Producers are Jeffs and Matthew Metcalfe.
Title: A Mistake
Festival: Tribeca Festival (Spotlight Narrative)
Director-screenwriter: Christine Jeffs
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Simon McBurney, Mickey Sumner, Rena Owen, Richard Crouchley, Acacia O’Connor, Fern Sutherland, Matthew Sunderland
Sales agent: Cornerstone
Running time: 1 hr 41 mins