The story has it that the original favorite for the role of the boy was someone rejected by Burton because he was too tall. So instead we get Peter Firth, already developing a double chin when he's supposed to be only 17, who shuffles around like someone who can only practice one posture and expression per film.
A film starring Burton and Joan Plowright is hardly likely to be a complete flop, but this whole "angst" screenplay, where Shaffer bamboozles us as usual with his "sound and fury signifying nothing" and throws in his favorite deus ex machina to boot, hypnosis, which he doesn't get right even on its own terms, is at best a sophisticated exercise in voyeurism and normal-human-being bashing.
A film starring Burton and Joan Plowright is hardly likely to be a complete flop, but this whole "angst" screenplay, where Shaffer bamboozles us as usual with his "sound and fury signifying nothing" and throws in his favorite deus ex machina to boot, hypnosis, which he doesn't get right even on its own terms, is at best a sophisticated exercise in voyeurism and normal-human-being bashing.