The Children Act

Fiona Maye is a High Court judge in London who specialises in family law. Her marriage to Jack is going through a difficult period when she is asked to rule on an urgent case involving a seventeen-year-old boy named Adam, who has leukaemia. Adam and his parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and refuse the blood transfusion that could save his life, so the hospital needs a court order to treat him. Before deciding, Fiona visits Adam, and the encounter affects both his future and her own.

The film is a British and American drama directed by Richard Eyre, working from a screenplay by Ian McEwan. It came after Eyre's The Dresser and before King Lear in his filmography. Emma Thompson plays Fiona, with Stanley Tucci as Jack and Fionn Whitehead as Adam. The cast also includes Jason Watkins, Anthony Calf and Paul Jesson, part of a production with 58 credited cast members and 65 credited crew.

Released in 2018, the film runs 105 minutes and took about 18 million dollars worldwide. Ratings are moderate across the board: 6.7 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 17,000 votes and 6.6 out of 10 on TMDB from around 659 votes. The critics' rating stands at 6.7 out of 10 from 112 reviews, close to the audience scores, suggesting broadly similar reactions from reviewers and viewers.