Reviews

I first saw the film when it landed on US cable a year after it came out. It blew my little head away, I was only 16 and it was the first new wave music I'd heard, having been a strictly folky, classical kid growing up. The music mesmerized me, as did Hazel O'Connor's amazing look and charismatic vocal performances, and Phil Daniels' tough but soft Cockney manager just stole my heart. But I think my favorite character was Jonathan Pryce's drugged out sax player. He was so out of place in the band and so harmless and pathetic, he just begged for sympathy. Favorite scenes, the performance when the lights went out, and the love scene on the train.

Okay, so the movie isn't the Rose! But it was really excellent for its limited budget and for its portrayal of the Britain of the early 80's, exploding with rebellious youth, looking for a way out of the dole queue. I went to Britain only a couple of years later and found the movie to have been very reflective of the atmosphere I found when I was there.

If you get a chance to, see it. It is a great movie, with some wonderful performances, and the music will blow you away.

This is one of my all-time favorite movies. From the opening credits, superimposed over Vanessa Redgrave's skirt sweeping through the wet grass and flowers around Mrs. Wilcox's beloved Howards End, through to the final image of rural bliss, the cinematography is perfection. The costuming is amazing, the screenplay is adept, and the acting is stellar, to say the least. To have Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave, and Anthony Hopkins in one movie together is to see a true synthesis of talent, not to mention James Wilby and Samuel West. The scene where Leonard Bast goes walking into the field of blue flowers is breathtaking.

I recommend this film to anyone who loves Forster and who loves painterly cinematography. Also it is full of the finest performances by all of the actors involved.

The film is full of charm and amusement and I love the plot-line. The characters are witty and warm and likeable. It's quirky and some times the plot is hard to follow, but again, the characters are so real and likeable, they draw you in.

Then there's the music. I never knew I liked Irish tenors until I saw this movie.

The only truly confusing thing is that it is hard to tell when the movie is set. It seems almost timeless and yet there is a definite timeframe referred to in the film.

Adrian Dunbar is a wonderful actor and carries the film along, although Ned Beatty succeeds in stealing it half-way through! Tara Fitzgerald is underutilized as the romantic cause of the hero's journey, but does well with what she's given. The actor who plays the hero's friend is also quite wonderful.

I love this movie, mostly because it showcases the fabulous talents of both Imelda Staunton and Saskia Reeves. Imelda is too much in the shade in most of her other movies, but here she plays with her looks and her persona, in a way I only have observed the best actors do. There is a depth here, only hinted at in her other portrayals, namely Mary in Peter's Friends. I find it a wonderful portrayal of the friendship between two heterosexual women, so often misinterpreted in movies. Friendship between women can incorporate jealousy, but also a profound understanding of what it means to be in love, to be unhappy or content, the core of what it is to be a woman. This was admirably played out by the two leads, who outshone the other characters, mostly men, by the epic quality of their friendship. I have not seen either in a film for a while, I hope they show up again soon, and in leading roles.

Timothy Dalton plays Heathcliff as no one before or since has played him. He is passionate and brooding, cruel and tender. His bright eyes pierce through Cathy's soul, and our own, when he returns from his wanderings to find her married to Edgar Linton.

The rest of the cast is also well-chosen. Anna Calder-Marshall, not as conventionally beautiful as other Cathy's have been, nonetheless, portrays the charisma of the character and her possessive, obsessive personality with brilliant accuracy. Ian Ogilvy as Edgar is just the right touch of gentle lover and aristocratic snob, so that it is believable that Cathy might actually fall for him, on the surface at any rate.

This was Mr. Dalton's first foray into the gothic depths of the Bronte sisters' works. His second, as Mr. Rochester in the fine BBC version (1985) of Jane Eyre, was just as compelling. Now if he were just a few inches shorter, we could get him to play the French teacher in a movie of Villette!!

What I have always treasured about this film is the fact that, even with big stars like the inimitable Kate, and Peter O'Toole, it was not a star vehicle. The excellent young actors, two of whom have become major stars in their own right, held their own, and were given ample screen time to shine. Timothy Dalton as foxy Philip II and Anthony Hopkins as a beefy and discontent Richard the Lionheart had one of the most wrenching love scenes in the history of film.

But probably my favorite scenes do have La Hepburn in them. The scene with the mirror and the jewelry. "I would hang you from my nipples, but you'd shock the children!" Her delivery of that line is absolutely charming and devastating at the same time, as we watch a legendary beauty acknowledging that that beauty is fading, into obscurity.

Peter O'Toole rants and raves with the best of them, and his lament of how he's lost his boys, is touching if exasperating. But I would have loved to see how Robert Preston played it, who did it originally on Broadway. There might have been a bit more subtlety there, which I found lacking in O'Toole's performance.

Lastly, mention must be made of the excellent score that John Barry crafted for this movie. He used actual medieval chants and carols, as well as using the monophonic chant notes as the basis of his themes. I think it was his best score, bar none!!

This is a must see for any fans of the medieval and of this historical period in particular. This is the Eleanor who has lost faith with the Court of Love, who has decided to allow herself to be imprisoned for the sake of the love she still bears Henry, yet finds that love has been trod in the dirt, in favor of a slip of a girl whom she raised as her own daughter.

I hope that seeing this movie may convert some of those who have never liked Kate into Kate-a-holics like me.