Sunday, November 14, 2010
GREAT MEN AND THEIR WIVES
Today's movie was
with Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren. Also James McAvoy and Paul Giomatti.
And there you have it. A tour de force, star billing vehicle with a big story based loosely on a historic situation. Leo Tolstoy and his wife battle to the end while others lurk to coopt the Tolstoy legacy.
This is a film that Merchant-Ivory might have made. Beautiful, pastoral, realistic if not real, sets. A lot of detail about threshing and milking and peasants. Big themes.
I have always felt distanced by all this flummery but it does go down well. As Toylstoy dies, a real pufferoo of a train chugs back and forth outside the last station on the rail between Moscow and the southern Russian border.
I liked McAvoy who seems to stand back from all this and just be a quiet witness. It is through his eyes that we see all this drama unfold. And he has some nice sex scenes with Kerry Condon who seems to cut through all the bullshit as the love interest. Very good, her.
I liked it well enough but once is enough. I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
