This is a film for emos--middle-aged, malelike emos, with their brains stuffed full of cotton like a Quay brothers puppet. 'tis ever so dainty and genteel, to be sure; ever trembling at the verge; but the verge is one of farce, not tragedy.
The subjects are a pair of silly-ass Edwardians--one of them Lytton Strachey--who couldn't...I mean to say, they couldn't possibly...could they?...but they do. At one point the woman sets about cutting off the man's big, bushy, Edward Lear beard, just to serve him right, but as the first snicker is about to be sneed, her hand is stayed by the onset of adoration. As they lounging in a meadow together, she confides that she would jolly well like him to kiss her, whereupon he, much struck by the novelty of the idea, exclaims, "D'ye know, I think I should like to!"
The material cries out for an Alan Ayckbourn to exploit its absurdity, but here is instead is treated with the greatest doe-eyed tremulousness, eggshell-walking, and tea-party delicacy. It's like a trail left by an animal with the minutest frame of reference possible.
That animal is probably a snail. Scene after scene inches its way along to a tiny little line of dialogue, of the d'ye-know-I-have-a-notion variety, which promises to set the drama going. Then the scene fades out and that's it, that little line was all it was building to: nothing comes of nothing. Ms. Thompson whines and mopes her way through her part in her patented way, which has much in common with Monty Python's invisible man. Seldom does the film, in its great daintiness, allow her or Mr. Pryce or anyone else to suggest any genuine interaction that was ever had between any genuine people.
Except for the actors, I can't imagine any reason why anyone would want to go to see this. My reason was that I was catching up on the film work of Penelope Wilton, who plays Strachey's mother. Allowed half a chance, she and the character could have given the film a good boot in the arse, which it deserved, and would have profited by; but all they had a chance for was a little pinch on the arm. More than that would have disturbed the doilies.
The subjects are a pair of silly-ass Edwardians--one of them Lytton Strachey--who couldn't...I mean to say, they couldn't possibly...could they?...but they do. At one point the woman sets about cutting off the man's big, bushy, Edward Lear beard, just to serve him right, but as the first snicker is about to be sneed, her hand is stayed by the onset of adoration. As they lounging in a meadow together, she confides that she would jolly well like him to kiss her, whereupon he, much struck by the novelty of the idea, exclaims, "D'ye know, I think I should like to!"
The material cries out for an Alan Ayckbourn to exploit its absurdity, but here is instead is treated with the greatest doe-eyed tremulousness, eggshell-walking, and tea-party delicacy. It's like a trail left by an animal with the minutest frame of reference possible.
That animal is probably a snail. Scene after scene inches its way along to a tiny little line of dialogue, of the d'ye-know-I-have-a-notion variety, which promises to set the drama going. Then the scene fades out and that's it, that little line was all it was building to: nothing comes of nothing. Ms. Thompson whines and mopes her way through her part in her patented way, which has much in common with Monty Python's invisible man. Seldom does the film, in its great daintiness, allow her or Mr. Pryce or anyone else to suggest any genuine interaction that was ever had between any genuine people.
Except for the actors, I can't imagine any reason why anyone would want to go to see this. My reason was that I was catching up on the film work of Penelope Wilton, who plays Strachey's mother. Allowed half a chance, she and the character could have given the film a good boot in the arse, which it deserved, and would have profited by; but all they had a chance for was a little pinch on the arm. More than that would have disturbed the doilies.