Suffragette City

Films: The Bostonians
Format: DVD from Mokena Community Public Library through interlibrary loan on The New Portable.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Merchant/Ivory productions. Oh, I’m happy to admit that they are pretty and that they are well made. They just don’t interest me that much. Historical romances don’t really do a great deal for me in the best of situations (“Not always true!” I hear you say. “You loved Sense and Sensibility!”). It just seems that so many of the Merchant/Ivory movies are so timid, like everyone feels like touching another person will cause one of them to break. That being the case, I can’t say that I was too excited about The Bostonians.

The Bostonians is a weird sort of love triangle, one that today would almost certainly delve into the clear lesbianism of at least one of the characters, but that’s not what happens here. As the title suggests, we’ll be spending a great deal of our time in Boston, in this case about 10 years after the American Civil War. The apex of our love triangle is Verena Tarrant (Madeleine Potter), the daughter of Dr. (Wesley Addy) and Mrs. Tarrant (Barbara Byrne). He is a “mesmeric healer” while Verena has discovered a talent for oratory and a penchant for speaking on women’s rights. In this role, she has earned a number of followers and a friend in the press in the person of Mr. Pardon (Wallace Shawn).

Leisure Class

Film: Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
Format: Internet video on laptop.

I was a couple of minutes into Mr. & Mrs. Bridge when I realized I was in trouble. I went into it not knowing that it’s a Merchant/Ivory movie. I don’t want to talk Merchant/Ivory down, but I do have a bit of a history with them. That history is easily summed up: I don’t like them that much. They are routinely gorgeous and apparently historically accurate in terms of costuming and the like, but I also routinely find these films to be emotional slogs concerning people I really don’t care about. I’ve liked one or two of their films, though, and I do always attempt to like what I’m watching, so I forged ahead, worried but hopeful.

It’s nice to give a movie the benefit of the doubt, but in the case of Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, it didn’t deserve it. This is perhaps my least favorite type of movie. This is little more than a character study of two people I genuinely dislike. Rather than having a plot, it has episodes, and rather than reaching a conclusion, it simply ends. Despite a good cast, there is not a character here that is sympathetic or worth spending time around.

Upstairs-ish, Downstairs-ish

Film: The Remains of the Day
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on rockin’ flatcreen.

I like a good period drama now and then, and I have even liked my share of Jane Austen adaptations. That said, one of the issues of I have with British dramas from this era is that a part of me is surprised that anyone actually procreates. Everyone is so scared of his or her emotions and so terrified of physical contact that it’s a wonder the race perpetuated. Okay, I know that’s not actually true, but it is the way that romances especially are depicted from the Regency era through the Edwardian. Lemme tell ya, they ain’t got nothing on The Remains of the Day.

The film’s present is set in the 1950s, and as the film begins, a great English estate is auctioned off to an American buyer. This buyer is Jack Lewis (Christopher Reeve), a former congressman, who visited the home several decades earlier. The estate is slowly reopened after having been mainly shut down due to the death of Lord Darlington (James Fox) who had lived there. With a new family to live in the estate, a staff is again needed; the task of finding and hiring them falls to Mr. James Stevens (Anthony Hopkins), the head butler who has been with the house for multiple decades. Stevens recalls the housekeeper who worked at the Darlington estate in the 1930s and believes that due to her current situation, the former Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson) might be persuaded to return.

A Very Proper Romance

Film: A Room with a View
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop

After yesterday’s zombie bacchanalia, I thought it best to go as far in the opposite direction as I could. A Merchant Ivory production seems to fit that bill pretty nicely. Rather than flesh rending and the devouring of our heroes, we get a romance of excessive manners and proper breeding. I can’t call myself an aficionado of the company nor of the genre, but still, A Room with a View awaits and must be watched.

This is a difficult film for me to judge. I’ll be the first to say (okay, not really since I’m watching this 27 years after it was released) that it’s filled with excellent performances, in some cases by actors who have gone on to tremendous careers and a great deal of acclaim. I also understand very much that the things that annoy me here are supposed to annoy me. The characters I find infuriating are infuriating by design. I get that, but there’s still the fact that I have to spend time with them in the first place.