Dean Spanley

Dean Spanley (2008) is a quietly comic British-New Zealand film you can watch online on iFILM. Edwardian London, 1904: young Henslowe Fisk (Jeremy Northam) drags his cold and distant father Horatio (Peter O'Toole) to a peculiar lecture on reincarnation — and there they meet the Dean.

One bottle of Tokay wine at a dinner table later, Dean Spanley (Sam Neill) begins talking about chasing rabbits, sleeping in straw, and an overwhelming loyalty to a man he once served. Director Toa Fraser's adaptation of Lord Dunsany's 1936 novella is a film about grief that never found words — and about a father and son who needed a very roundabout route back to each other. Sam Neill does something genuinely funny and somehow devastating with the role. Stream Dean Spanley online on iFILM.