The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael
The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael is a 2005 British crime drama directed by Thomas Clay in his first feature. Co-written with Joseph Lang, it stars Daniel Spencer as Robert Carmichael, a bored teenage cellist from the coastal town of Newhaven who falls in with older, troubled youths and slides into drug dealing and hard drugs like cocaine and Ecstasy.
As Robert gets drawn deeper into crime, the group commits brutal acts, including a teenage girl being raped in a dirty flat and an assault on a middle-aged couple. The film ends with a shocking, violent scene that provokes strong reactions from viewers.
The movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics Week and was nominated for the Camera d’Or. It also screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival, where audiences again reacted badly to the violence. Clay and Lang defended the film’s graphic content as a way to reflect how rape is used as a weapon in war. Critics praised some technical aspects, especially the cinematography, but many called the film exploitative and gratuitous. Major reviews were mixed or negative, with some calling it a failed or troubling effort. On Rotten Tomatoes, about 40% of critics gave it a positive view.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:24 (CET).