Wetherby (1985)
Country: GB
Technical: col 97m
Director: David Hare
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Ian Holm, Judi Dench, Stuart Wilson, Tim McInnerny, Joely Richardson, Susannah Hamilton, Tom Wilkinson
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher is understandably disconcerted when a student who has just invited himself to a dinner party at her house returns the next day and blows his brains out in her kitchen. She finds it brings to the surface memories of her own ill-fated relationship with an airman during the 1950s.
Review:
An excellent writer and actors' piece, though the fragmented structure is ultimately wearing. Also, enough is said about these sympathetic 'ordinary' people in words that ring true for one to wish that a bit more were said to consolidate our gains. Unfortunately the author's overriding aim seems to be political, to show that in Thatcher's Britain the inner life of a human being is in every sense immaterial, symbolised by the screenplay's preoccupation with education as a doubtful commodity for an incurious and unemployable youth. In its use of a dramatic catalyst and its setting among the professional middle classes, it recalls the Losey-Pinter film Accident, but its achievement of tranquil introspection is repeatedly blasted from the water by Tony Britten's Addinsell-inspired score.
Country: GB
Technical: col 97m
Director: David Hare
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Ian Holm, Judi Dench, Stuart Wilson, Tim McInnerny, Joely Richardson, Susannah Hamilton, Tom Wilkinson
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher is understandably disconcerted when a student who has just invited himself to a dinner party at her house returns the next day and blows his brains out in her kitchen. She finds it brings to the surface memories of her own ill-fated relationship with an airman during the 1950s.
Review:
An excellent writer and actors' piece, though the fragmented structure is ultimately wearing. Also, enough is said about these sympathetic 'ordinary' people in words that ring true for one to wish that a bit more were said to consolidate our gains. Unfortunately the author's overriding aim seems to be political, to show that in Thatcher's Britain the inner life of a human being is in every sense immaterial, symbolised by the screenplay's preoccupation with education as a doubtful commodity for an incurious and unemployable youth. In its use of a dramatic catalyst and its setting among the professional middle classes, it recalls the Losey-Pinter film Accident, but its achievement of tranquil introspection is repeatedly blasted from the water by Tony Britten's Addinsell-inspired score.
Country: GB
Technical: col 97m
Director: David Hare
Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Ian Holm, Judi Dench, Stuart Wilson, Tim McInnerny, Joely Richardson, Susannah Hamilton, Tom Wilkinson
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher is understandably disconcerted when a student who has just invited himself to a dinner party at her house returns the next day and blows his brains out in her kitchen. She finds it brings to the surface memories of her own ill-fated relationship with an airman during the 1950s.
Review:
An excellent writer and actors' piece, though the fragmented structure is ultimately wearing. Also, enough is said about these sympathetic 'ordinary' people in words that ring true for one to wish that a bit more were said to consolidate our gains. Unfortunately the author's overriding aim seems to be political, to show that in Thatcher's Britain the inner life of a human being is in every sense immaterial, symbolised by the screenplay's preoccupation with education as a doubtful commodity for an incurious and unemployable youth. In its use of a dramatic catalyst and its setting among the professional middle classes, it recalls the Losey-Pinter film Accident, but its achievement of tranquil introspection is repeatedly blasted from the water by Tony Britten's Addinsell-inspired score.