A love triangle develops between a smart disaffected working-class husband Jimmy, his reserved upper-middle-class wife Alison and her arrogant best friend Helena.
Having not seen the play on stage or in any other film version, I cannot say if this was better or worse. But on its own merits, it was just not very enjoyable. Emma Thompson's talents are wasted, and Kenneth Branagh seems to be over-the-top constantly. I found it very hard to believe that such a character could exist, and it makes me doubt Branagh's reputation. This is screen, not stage... scale it back a bit.
The story as a whole is not all that interesting. Perhaps in the 1950s it was ground-breaking for its display of domestic life, but today (2017) it seems dull and I suspect that viewers in 1989 were not as thrilled as they could have been.
Having not seen the play on stage or in any other film version, I cannot say if this was better or worse. But on its own merits, it was just not very enjoyable. Emma Thompson's talents are wasted, and Kenneth Branagh seems to be over-the-top constantly. I found it very hard to believe that such a character could exist, and it makes me doubt Branagh's reputation. This is screen, not stage... scale it back a bit.
The story as a whole is not all that interesting. Perhaps in the 1950s it was ground-breaking for its display of domestic life, but today (2017) it seems dull and I suspect that viewers in 1989 were not as thrilled as they could have been.