2009 where it won a Special Mention by the Ecumenical Jury. In the film, for which Blethyn had to learn French, she portrays a mother waiting for news of her missing child after the London bombings of July 2005, striking up a friendship with a Muslim man, whose child has also disappeared. Blethyn, who had initially felt sceptical and reticent about the film due to its background, was originally not available for filming but Bouchareb decided to delay filming to work with her. Upon release, the film received favourable reviews, particularly for its "dynamite acting". Mike Scott from The Times-Picayune commented "that Blethyn's performance is nuanced [...] it's that performance—at turns sweet, funny and heartbreaking—that ultimately draws viewers in and defies them to stop watching". Also in 2009, Blethyn played a Benedictine nun in Jan Dunn's film The Calling, also starring Joanna Scanlan and Pauline McLynn. Dunn's third feature film, it tells the story of Joanna, played by Emily Beecham, who after graduating from university, goes against her family and friends when she decides to join a closed order of nuns. Released to film festivals in 2009, the independent drama was not released to UK cinemas until 2010, when it was met with mixed to negative reviews by critics, some of which declared it "half Doubt, half Hollyoaks". Blethyn however, earned positive reviews for her performance; The Guardian writer Catherine Shoard wrote that "only she, really, manages to ride the rollercoaster jumps in plot and tone." Her last film of 2009 was Alex De Rakoff's crime film Dead Man Running alongside Tamer Hassan, Danny Dyer, and 50 Cent, in which she portrayed the wheelchair-using mother of a criminal who is taken hostage. The film received universally negative reviews from film critics, who deemed it to be full of "poor performances, stiff dialogue, [and] flat characters". 2011–present In May 2011, Blethyn began playing the title role in ITV's crime drama series, Vera as the North of England character Vera Stanhope, a nearly retired detective chief inspector obsessive about her work and driven by her own demons, based on the novels of Ann Cleeves. Initially broadcast to mixed reviews, it has since received favourable reviews, with Chitra Ramaswamy from The Guardian writing in 2016: "Blethyn is the best thing about Vera [...] She has the loveliest voice, at once girlish and gruff. Her face is kind but means business. Not many actors