The Law of Enclosures

The Law of Enclosures, just like Greyson’s film Lilies that was screened in 1997 in Rotterdam, is a tragi-romantic story about love, lies and jealousy (but without an obviously gay theme). The Law of Enclosures is an ambitious film version of the novel by Dale Peck, in which an unhappy love story is set complexly in two parallel worlds. Both couples – or rather, the same couple forty years later – live in the year 1991, while the Gulf War is fought in the background.The first thing that strikes Beatrice, a young supermarket clerk, about Henry is a large tumour at the bottom of his neck. First she thinks he has AIDS and pity makes her befriend this introvert boy. Later it turns out that he has a rare and malignant cancer. Henry has to have an operation, but his chances of survival are small. Romance blossoms between Beatrice and Henry, mainly because both are convinced it can’t last long. However the operation is a miraculous success and the couple decide to get married. Forty years later, little is left of the tender love of Bea and Hank. Both hate their work and they hardly ever see their children any more. Hank drinks too much and Bea has turned into a grumpy old woman. They quarrel about a holiday home that Hank wants to build. This house just happens to be close to the home of Myra, with whom Hank maintains a flirtatious relationship.