“I’d like people to take a look at others, to be aware, to question your own judgments. You never know what someone’s carrying.” Paul Andrew Williams

Brenda Blethyn and Andrea Riseborough deliver two of the year’s most moving performances in Dragonfly, a powerful new drama from London to Brighton director Paul Andrew Williams.

The film tells the story of Elsie (Blethyn), a neglected pensioner who finds an unlikely ally in her younger neighbour Colleen (Riseborough). As Colleen begins shopping, cleaning, and caring for Elsie, both women discover purpose and tenderness in a world that’s largely forgotten them. But their fragile peace is threatened when Elsie’s son (Jason Watkins) returns, resentful of Colleen’s presence and of the compassion he himself has failed to show.

“I wrote Dragonfly during COVID,” Williams explains. “I needed something I could shoot with few actors in a contained environment. I thought I’d never work again, so I just wrote about these two people I loved.”

That creative intimacy shapes every frame. “It’s not about scale,” he says. “It’s about what’s going on between them.”

Finding the Heart of Dragonfly

When asked which moment captures the heart of the film, Williams doesn’t hesitate.

“It’s when Brenda’s character lifts the blanket on her bed, the sheet’s perfectly smooth, and she smiles. It’s so small, but it says everything. That’s the heart of the movie.”

It’s a quiet, devastating detail that sums up the film’s empathy, finding beauty in the smallest acts of care.

A dog plays a crucial role in the story, both symbolically and emotionally.

“A dog gives unconditional love,” Williams says. “But we’ve built subconscious biases about certain breeds, thanks to how the media portrays them. The dog in Dragonfly becomes a mirror of how we judge people. We project fear or compassion based on appearances.”

Williams doesn’t deny the film’s bleakness. “It’s bleak because life can be,” he says. “I worked in a care home when I was younger — it’s sad, because for many people, that’s where it all ends. We don’t really look forward to getting old.”

But Dragonfly isn’t just despairing — it’s human. “You can forgive a lot in a film,” he adds, “but if the acting isn’t real, you switch off. Here, Brenda and Andrea are extraordinary. Everything on set was built to help them do their best work.”