I'm very surprised at the low rating of this film, which I found fascinating if only for the view we get of French high society just before and at the start of the French Revolution. I loved the glimpses we got of French Opera, the Montgolfier brothers' balloon, Franz Mesmer's experiments, the Royal Court, and a Convent school. All of these are recreated in lavish detail. A considerable amount of the dialogue, especially during the first half of the film, is in French. I can only assume that for many viewers all this detracts from the central drama of the rivalry between three women for Thomas Jefferson's (Nick Nolte's) affections: his troubled and possessive daughter Patsy (Gwyneth Paltrow) whose love for the church threatens to supplant her affection for her father; Maria Cosway (Greta Scacchi), an Anglo-Italian artist and musician whose marriage to painter husband Richard (Simon Callow) is one of convenience and not of passion; and Sally Hemings (Thandie Newton), a young slave who is a much loved nursemaid to Jefferson's younger daughter Polly but also half-sister to his late wife and very much on the cusp of womanhood. Added to this is another family drama, the tension between Sally and her brother James, who has been brought to Paris to learn the secrets of French Cuisine, but who also comes under the influence of revolutionary ideas and yearns for his freedom.
These intimate dramas are all very civilised and restrained, somewhat in contrast to the increasing lawlessness around the protagonists as the revolution gathers pace, but as a stiff upper lipped Brit I enjoyed all the suppressed emotion and coded conversations, and didn't find the film overlong despite its considerable length. But what we see also poses questions about who the liberty and equality promised by the American revolution and the coming French one is for.
With so many ingredients, this is certainly more of a sprawling royal banquet of a film than a perfectly arranged nouvelle cuisine dish, but in an age where "The Crown"'s recreation of the British Royal family's doings has been such a success I think it perhaps should be better received now than when it was first released.
Perhaps not quite such an elegant delight as some of their other films, but still a very worthy opus in the Merchant Ivory catalogue, and I think very much underrated by both critics and audience.
These intimate dramas are all very civilised and restrained, somewhat in contrast to the increasing lawlessness around the protagonists as the revolution gathers pace, but as a stiff upper lipped Brit I enjoyed all the suppressed emotion and coded conversations, and didn't find the film overlong despite its considerable length. But what we see also poses questions about who the liberty and equality promised by the American revolution and the coming French one is for.
With so many ingredients, this is certainly more of a sprawling royal banquet of a film than a perfectly arranged nouvelle cuisine dish, but in an age where "The Crown"'s recreation of the British Royal family's doings has been such a success I think it perhaps should be better received now than when it was first released.
Perhaps not quite such an elegant delight as some of their other films, but still a very worthy opus in the Merchant Ivory catalogue, and I think very much underrated by both critics and audience.