Joel Hopkins directs Diane Keaton, Brendan Gleeson and Lesley Manville in this posh romance incongruously based on the true story of a man who warded off property developers who wanted to move him out of a shack he built on Hampstead Heath decades earlier. 

A rich people’s movie, no doubt made from the hiding of property developers tax loophole wonga, for the viewing pleasure of wives of retired property developers, about a man terrorised by property developers. It reminds me of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman’s love of Les Mis in its weird politics. Having said all that, North London is filmed rather well and both Keaton and Gleeson are given decent roles. She is more substantial here than she has been since the Eighties. He is better than the material but adds real humanity and heft to what could have been a broad caricature. Gleeson raises this above passable pap and you expect nothing less of him. Still despite all the lush locations and charming chemistry you cannot help but feel certain plot strands are rather swiftly, glossed over. Who is violently bullying Donald off his land? When did he start making the front pages of tabloids? The focus has sensibly been shifted to focus on the romance but the message is so iffy that you wonder if the true story, sans geriatric canoodling, might make the better movie? If so, keep Gleeson.

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