Saturday, June 02, 2007
STUFFED SHIRTS
Today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film was Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala's
with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Also James Fox and Christopher Reeve.
It is their version of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel which I read when it came out.
My rule is not to see movies of books I have read or books made of movies.
Now, I have broken that rule.
It is quite an accomplishment to unravel the novel and screen it. The book is an internal narrative on the part of an older butler. A lot of his thoughts are self serving and evasive. You have to figure out for yourself what is going on.
They have preserved some of this for the film.
My main complaint is that, as usual for this team, the thing takes about 20 minutes longer than necessary.
It is all dressed up and conveys an era as well as a story so we amble along and see it as well as learn about the situation.
I have a limited taste for Sir Anthony but Ms. Thompson manages to get the scale back in balance.
I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.
