Category: Theatre Adaptation

The Two Popes (2019)

Hopkins and Pryce excel in Fernando Merielles’ witty and thought-provoking The Two Popes

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Cast: Jonathan Pryce (Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Pope Francis), Anthony Hopkins (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI)

Hollywood loves a buddy movie. And what buddy movie could be more off the wall than Two Popes: one a German traditionalist with a reputation for rigid interpretation of church law who reads Latin for fun, the other an easy-going Argentinian reformer with a love of football and tango. So that’s what you get with The Two Popes, a surprisingly funny and engaging film about Papal politics, dashed with a pleasingly even-handed perspective on its two central characters.

In 2012, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) is planning to hand in his resignation as Archbishop of Buenos Aires to Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins), now in his seventh year of Pope. Bergoglio feels that he has little left to offer the church, and this own reformist ideas are out of step with the current leadership. He feels his best calling would be to return to a simpler, parish priest life. But Benedict XVI summons him to the Vatican to dissuade him – leading to a series of prolonged heart-to-heart conversations between the two that see a thaw in their relationship, heartfelt confessions from both men on their failings, and Benedict’s revelation that he plans to resign from the Pontificate – and wants Bergoglio to succeed him, as Bergoglio can offer the reform to the church that Benedict cannot.

The Two Popes is a terrific adaptation by Anthony McCarten of his own stage play. It shows us Benedict’s conservative, safety-first policies (towards everything from financial scandals to child abuse scandals) and Bergoglio’s more modern, inclusive church, but largely avoids holding one up as wholly superior to the other, or turning the story into a simple good guy/bad guy conflict. Instead it focuses on showing the faults and positives of both men, and how both men felt a calling and need for their service at different times – and how this loss of calling (something both men suffer from at the start of the film) can be reborn through patience, listening and reflection. Meirelles directs this very theatrical piece sharply, with a keen eye for expanding it into film with a combination of intriguing angles, visual style and confident editing.

Unfolding over the course of several increasingly heartfelt conversations – which progress from awkwardly blunt confrontation, through thawing openness, to something near to a confessional – this is a film that uses the Hollywood convention of a mismatched couple to allow an intriguing exploration of the price and value of faith and the difficulty of duty. Sharp commentary is made on the backgrounds of both men – Benedict growing up in Nazi Germany, the sharp criticism of Bergoglio’s perceived lack of action during the Military Junta coup, which led to his dismissal as head of the Jesuit order in Argentina. Both express guilt, regret and even touches of self-loathing – but both also react to those feelings in the other with patience and support.

It also helps that these conversations around church politics and religious intent are told with plenty of fresh and entertaining jokes. There is always a lot of mileage to be had from seeing people like the Pope delightedly watching trashy TV or failing to recognise either ABBA or the Beatles, while Bergoglio’s homespun openness and willingness to talk with anyone about anything (not to mention his passion for football) throw open no end of comic possibilities from seeing this prince of the Church insist on being treated as just a regular joe.

It also gives loads of opportunities for its two stars, arguably Wales’ leading actors (both highly deserving of their Oscar nods). Hopkins, given his best material in years, is brilliant as Benedict: irascible, imposing, morally certain and firm but also playful just below the surface and a man profoundly aware of his own mistakes and failings. Hopkins delivers the lines with just the right touch of twinkle in his eye.

He also bounces wonderfully off Pryce who is possibly at a career best as Bergoglio. A brilliant physical match for Pope Francis, Pryce’s performance captures perfectly the unaffected humility of the man, but also his intensely sharp personal reflection and the burdens of guilt, as well as the shying away from confrontation that is Bergoglio’s greatest failing. Pryce’s comic timing is impeccable, but he also carries the movie’s heart and soul with affecting skill, pulling off the difficult trick of making a good man a compelling one.

Meirelles’ film is a talky affair – and its construction is a little pat at times, like a very well assembled production line buddy movie and biopic. It never completely escapes the clichés of two-very-different-people-coming-together that is one of its heartbeats, but it does it all so well, with such grace and wit – and two such terrific performances – that it hardly matters. Another big success for Netflix.

Henry V (1944)

Once more unto the breach with Laurence Olivier as Henry V

Director: Laurence Olivier

Cast: Laurence Olivier (Henry V), Renée Asherson (Princess Katherine), Robert Newton (Pistol), Leslie Banks (Chorus), Felix Aylmer (Archbishop of Canterbury), Robert Helpmann (Bishop of Ely), Nicholas Hannen (Exeter), Ernest Thesiger (Duke of Berri), Frederick Cooper (Nym), Roy Emerton (Bardolph), Freda Jackson (Mistress Quickly), George Cole (Boy), Harcourt Williams (King Charles VI), Russell Thorndike (Duke of Bourbon), Leo Genn (Constable of France), Francis Lister (Orleans), Max Adrian (The Dauphin), Esmond Knight (Fluellen), Michael Shepley (Gower), John Laurie (Jamy), Niall McGinnis (MacMorris), Valentine Dyall (Burgandy)

Olivier’s pre-eminence as the leader of the acting profession in Britain for a large chunk of the last century probably found its roots in his imperiously sublime production of Henry V, the first time he directed a film, but also the point where it seemed that Olivier and the country of Britain seemed to be almost one and the same. Filmed as a propaganda piece, heralding the indomitable spirit of the British in the face of foreign wars, Olivier’s film is a triumph that also set the tone for what the public expected from Shakespeare films for decades to come.

Originally Oliver balked at the idea of directing the film, approaching William Wyler to take the job on. But Wyler, rightly, knew he could never bring the Shakespearean understanding to it that Olivier could, so the soon-to-be Sir Laurence took the job on himself – meaning he directed, co-produced, co-adapted and starred in the film. I’m not sure anyone else could have done it – or invested the entire project with such certainty, such confidence, such power of personality that the entire project flies together into a sweeping, brightly technicolour treat of pageantry and theatre.

Olivier’s concept for the film is ingenious – and influential. Taking as its cue the words of the chorus (delivered with a archly bombastic confidence by Leslie Banks), the call to “let your imaginary forces work”, the film is set initially in a genuine Elizabethan era staging of Henry V (including unfortunate rain downpour after the first scene).Slowly, it develops over the course of the film from set to cinematic sound stage (still designed with influence from medieval illustrations) and finally into a realistic location setting for the Battle of Agincourt, before turning heel and repeating the journey back until the film ends again in the Globe theatre, with the actors taking their bow (and the female characters now played by fresh-faced boys). It’s marvellously done, and a neat play on the limitations of both film and theatre, and a testament to the powers that imagination can have to expand the world of what we are presented with.

The style of the play develops as we watch it, becoming more natural and restrained as we get closer to Agincourt, then progressing gently back the other way. The opening scenes play Canterbury and Ely’s long-winded legal argument in favour of war for laughs (with neat comic timing by Felix Aylmer and Robert Helpmann), with an avalanche of papers across the stage, Canterbury frequently lost in his exposition and Ely (and even Henry) having to prompt him with precise points. This is a nice set-up for the comic characters of the play, Falstaff’s old retainers here are the very picture of high-spirited, rowdy common folk (though I must say Robert Newton’s high-energy, gurning Pistol is a bit of a trial, even if it perfectly captures the playing-to-the-cheap-seats mania the role seems to require).

This comic exuberance (and the stuff with Canterbury is genuinely quite funny) gives a perfect counterpoint for Laurence Olivier to perform Henry at his imperious best. Olivier was an actor who invested his Shakespearean delivery with far more naturalism than he is often given credit for, and his Henry here has more than enough true feeling, emotion, determination, courage, bravery and nobility behind his almost sanctified greatness. And of course you get Olivier’s outstanding delivery, that wonderfully rich voice with just a hint of sharpness, delivering the lines not as just poetry, but as true moments of invention. Olivier also has the mastery of the small moments – and Henry doesn’t get much of those – with two particular favourites being the small cough in the wings to clear his throat before entering for his first scene, and that satisfied, exuberant smile at the curtain call at the play’s end. His Henry – the true warrior king of virtue – cemented perception of the character for decades to come.

True, Olivier never touches on Henry’s darker side. Olivier neatly cut anything that could introduce any shades of grey into the character: gone is the summary execution of the traitors at Southampton, cut are the references to naked newborn babes being spitted on pikes before Harfleur, nowhere do you hear the order to execute all prisoners at Agincourt. This is film-making with a purpose, to pushing the message of England, for good, against all.

As a director, Olivier revelled in the possibilities of cinema, marrying it to theatre. For the large speeches, Olivier invariably starts small and close, and then pans sharply and widely out to turn the cinema into a theatre – also allowing the actors (often to be fair, himself) to not feel restrained by the intimacy of the camera, but to deliver the speeches as intended, larger than life and bursting with impact. Olivier’s confidence with the camera is striking, his film a celebration of sweeping shots, of carefully placed tracking shots, of well-delivered acting. The camera work in the Globe is beautifully done, a series of carefully selected angles and shots. The long panning shot over a model of London leading to the Globe that book-ends the film is beautifully done, and the confidence with which Olivier slowly transitions from artifice to reality is superbly well done.

The style of the piece is extraordinary, with its primary colours like a medieval book brought to life. There is some pleasing comic mileage from the French court, reduced almost to a man to being a bunch of camp moral weaklings. The courting of Princess Katherine (Renée Asherson, in a role intended for Vivien Leigh) has a playful charm to it (even if, as in the play, it’s probably a scene too far after the highpoint of Agincourt). But the heart of it is that long build to the campaign, for Agincourt to be brought to life (at huge expense at the time), a beautiful rendering and explosion of reality after the careful artificiality of the rest of the film, as if we really have got our imaginations working and brought it to life before us as the Chorus instructed.

The film established a regular Olivier company that would work with him on films to come. William Walton’s score seems to capture that mood of England at war and believing it was in the right. The cast – plucked from English theatre by Olivier – give striking performances, from Leo Genn’s stern Constable to Max Adrian’s bitter Dauphin, with Esmond Knight’s pernickety Fluellen leading the way for the English. Olivier is of course at the centre as the master conductor, a man who fitted so naturally into the role of leader that he basically seemed ready to take it on for the whole country, never mind just the film. Is there an actor around who was more suited and natural in positions of authority than Olivier? Who was so easily able to inspire and dalliance with genius?

Turning Henry Vinto a patriotic celebration of England was what was needed, but turning Shakespeare into something that worked on film, that married the theatrical qualities with the cinematic sweep of the camera was exactly what the Bard needed to find a life on screen. Olivier’s daring was to strip down the play and work out what would work on screen and how to make that come to life. Doing so, he defined Shakespeare films for a generation.

Pygmalion (1938)

The leads excel in this vibrant, well-made adaptation of Shaw that set the framework for My Fair Lady

Director: Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard

Cast: Leslie Howard (Professor Henry Higgins), Wendy Hiller (Eliza Doolittle), Wilfrid Lawson (Alfred Doolittle), Marie Lohr (Mrs Higgins), Scott Sunderland (Colonel George Pickering), Jean Cadell (Mrs Pearce), David Tree (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Everley Gregg (Mrs Eynsford-Hill)

“It’s an insult for them to offer me an honour, as if they have ever heard of me – and it’s very likely they never have. They might as well send some honour to George [VI] for being King of England.” That was George Bernard Shaw’s reaction when he heard that he had won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. Now that’s a reaction that would have burned Twitter up today. Mind you Shaw wasn’t adverse to taking the film world’s money for bringing Pygmalion to the screen – and also means he is one half of a nifty pub quiz question (who is the only other person to win BOTH an Oscar and the Nobel Prize for literature?).

Pygmalion, always Shaw’s most popular play, seemed a logical choice to begin for producer Gabriel Pascal’s dream of bringing a cannon of the playwright’s complete work to the cinema screens. Shaw agreed – so long as he had was on board as the screenwriter and with a personal supervision of the adaptation. He missed a trick by not insisting on creative control. Shaw re-wrote and restructured much of the play for the screen – and it’s this screenplay that forms the basis of My Fair Lady. So closely so, that it’s the most familiar version of the play – and so close does the dialogue cut that you end up wondering where the songs are.

Anthony Asquith was bought on board as the director, and Shaw oversaw the assembly of the cast. Leslie Howard was cast over Shaw’s original choice, Charles Laughton, and also given a co-director credit (although there are some disagreements about what this meant, with some claiming it was basically some on-set notes to actors). Asquith was a director with a gift for opening out literary adaptations onto the big screen, and he succeeds here in capturing much of the atmosphere and mood of Shaw’s comedy of manners. There was also a young whippersnapper called David Lean on hand to direct the montage sequences that showed Eliza’s training.

Leslie Howard was a major matinee idol, but also an accomplished stage actor – and both qualities come to the fore here in what is surely the best Higgins captured on screen (with apologies to Rex Harrison). His Higgins is a rough-edged, somewhat scruffy, eccentric who speaks before he thinks, treats everything with an absent-minded, off-the-cuff bluntness and is almost professionally rude. He’s never straight-forwardly charming, indeed sometimes he’s outright cruel and bullying, but there is a professorial lack of harm to him that makes him reassuringly British and decent. And he gives the final act a real sense of vulnerability and emotional repression that is vital.

If Leslie Howard makes a very good Higgins, I do think there is very little doubt that Wendy Hiller is the definitive Eliza Doolittle. Handpicked by Shaw, she is superb here. Her Eliza has all the fragility, worry and working-class chippiness you expect, but Hiller laces it with such a real streak of humanity that you end up deeply investing in her. Her flourishing sense of personality, of her growing strength of personality and feelings of independence dominate much of the final act of the play, and Hiller mixes it with notes of genuine hurt and sadness about the dismissive treatment she is receiving from Higgins. It’s a performance overflowing with nuance and pain – and the moment when a pained Eliza responds with a pained dignity when Higgins suggests she marry someone else that “we sold flowers….we did not sell ourselves” is a truly wonderful moment.

But this is also a very well made, cinematic movie with some really outstandingly funny sequences. The scene where Eliza – newly trained to talk “proper”, but with no idea about what makes for decent polite conversation – regales a dinner party in earnestly, perfectly accented English about her belief that “they done [that] old woman in” at great length is hilariously funny, as is Howard’s wryily amused response. There is also equal comic mileage to be got from Wilfrid Lawson’s very funny performance as Eliza’s selfish, street-smart father, the dustbinman with the mind of philosopher.

Asquith’s film is very well shot and assembled, helped a great deal by this inventively made and very structured montage sequences contributed by Lean (who also edited the film). It’s done with real snap, and Asquith’s camera movements and invention of framing dwarves the far more staid and flat production of My Fair Lady that would win many Oscars 25 years later. He knows when to go for low, static shots – particularly in those moments when Eliza realises she is just a toy for Higgins – and also close-ups and one-two shots that give even greater energy and dynamism to Shaw’s wonderful dialogue (again the final argument sequence benefits hugely from this).

Shaw didn’t go for creative control, so he failed to prevent the happy ending that was added to his play, as Eliza returns to Higgins (after seeming to leave to marry Freddy), and the Professor continues his pretence of indifference – which thanks to Howard’s excellent performance earlier we know is just that. To be honest, even with the performances of the leads, Eliza’s devotion to Higgins still seems to come from left-field (just as it does in the musical) and there isn’t much in the way of romantic chemistry between them. But it works for many people, even if it never works for me (or Shaw).

Pygmalion is a fine film, far superior to My Fair Lady (better made, better acted, better written, funnier, smarter, more moving and more heartwarming). It deserves to live a life outside of its shadow.

And that other Nobel and Oscar winner? Why Bob Dylan of course.

My Fair Lady (1964)

Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison cover how to speak proper in My Fair Lady

Director: George Cukor

Cast: Audrey Hepburn (Eliza Doolittle), Rex Harrison (Professor Henry Higgins), Stanley Holloway (Alfred P Doolittle), Wilfrid Hyde-White (Colonel Hugh Pickering), Gladys Cooper (Mrs Higgins), Jeremy Brett (Freddy Eynsford-Hill), Theodore Bikel (Zoltan Karpathy), Mona Washbourne (Mrs Pearce), Isobel Elsom (Mrs Eynsford-Hill), Henry Daniell (British Ambassador)

My Fair Lady is possibly one of the most popular musicals of all time. A singing-and-dancing adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s most popular play, a satire on self-improvement and sexual politics, the original Broadway production ran for over six years and 2,717 performances, while the original cast-recording album was a smash hit bestseller. It was a question of when rather than if a film version would be made. When it finally happened, the film was garlanded with Oscars aplenty, not least Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

The musical follows the story of Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), a cockney flower girl in Victorian London, whose life is changed after a chance encounter with linguistics genius Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison). Higgins has a bet with his colleague Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) – he can change Eliza’s accent and manners so much that the shrill cockney girl will pass for a society belle. The bet will not only change their lives, but also those of Eliza’s father, sage-like binman Alfred (Stanley Holloway), and lovestruck romantic young gentleman Freddy Eynsford-Hill (Jeremy Brett).

From the start, producer Jack L Warner wanted to develop a new verison of the film, fresh and different from the stage production. George Cukor, the esteemed director from Hollywood’s Golden Years, was brought on board as a safe pair of hands – but it was clear Warner was calling the shots. How to put your own stamp on a massive hit musical? Well you start by getting a fresh cast in. Julie Andrews had made the role her own in the original production, so Hollywood was stunned when she was overlooked for the part. Instead Audrey Hepburn was hired – while Julie Andrews got the consolation price of being able to accept Disney’s offer of the role of Mary Poppins. Warner knew who he wanted for Higgins – and Cary Grant was swiftly courted for the role. But Grant refused, allegedly responding that he wouldn’t even see the film unless Rex Harrison was retained in his signature role.

So Harrison owes him a drink or two, because the film allowed him to leave a permanent record of a stage role he had played over 1,000 times on Broadway and in the West End. Harrison had taken a revolutionary approach to musicals, by basically not singing. Instead he sort of spoke the songs rhythmically – an approach that every other performer of the role has stuck to. The film is a brilliant capture of this unique and authoritative performance, and while Harrison is not exactly fresh he’s certainly charismatic, delivering every scene with confidence and well-rehearsed bombast.

Harrison’s steely lack of willingness to compromise also lead indirectly to a revolution in sound recording in the movies. Harrison refused to obey the custom at the time to lip-sync on set to a pre-recorded soundtrack. Harrison insisted that his performance was subtly different every time so he could never lip-sync accurately. Instead the technicians were forced to invent a sort of wireless microphone that could be disguised in the over-sized neck ties Harrison wears. This also means that at least one musical number has the bizarre situation of Harrison singing live, Hyde-White lip-syncing and Audrey Hepburn being dubbed.

Ah yes Hepburn. If there is one thing everyone remembers about Hepburn’s performance in this film, it is that she doesn’t sing a single note of the final film. Her actual singing was quickly considered by Warner to be not up to snuff, and so she is replaced by voice-double-to-the-stars Marnie Nixon. It’s always a mark against Hepburn, whose performance is often rather shrill, stagy and (whisper it) even a little bit irritating. In fact, she’s pretty much miscast as the cockney flower girl, never convincing as a bit of rough from the streets, and is so horrendously misstyled throughout that she also jarringly looks like a 1960s fashion icon floated into a period film.

Having hired the male star of the Broadway production – not to mention Stanley Holloway also being retained from the original cast after James Cagney refused to be drawn out from retirement – the film quickly settles down into being a straight Broadway musical captured as faithfully as possible on the big-screen. My Fair Lady is a film crushed under the pressure of its design, and watching it today it looks unbearably studio-bound and flat. In every scene you can never forget you are watching the action take place on enormous sets, with the camera pulled back to try and get as much of the expensive soundstage work in frame as possible.

As a dance musical, it’s pretty flat – Holloway’s numbers in particular are strikingly lifeless in their dancing, which makes you regret even more that Cagney couldn’t be lured to star in it – and much of the singing feels forced or over-performed. Even Harrison’s numbers feel pretty by-the-numbers from Harrison’s constant repetition of them. Even the more impressive scenes – such as the race track sequence – feel artificial and over-designed, the money chucked at the careful period detail and over-elaborate costumes and set (designs courtesy of Cecil Beaton, who allegedly drew the designs and then disappeared to leave them to be interpreted by others) seeming more and more dated as the years pass by.

But then this was a film that probably felt dated at the time it was made – it beat Dr Strangelove for best picture, and in five years’ time Midnight Cowboy was lifting the Oscar – never more so than in Cukor’s direction. One wonders at times what Cukor really did: Warner cast the film and led on the design and staging. Harrison and Holloway had played their roles literally thousands of times already. The camera work is as conservative and unimaginative as you can expect, with the film dryly set up to give you the perfect view from the stalls. Several touches – such as the staging (complete with blurry focus edges) of Eliza’s fantasies of the domineering Higgins being punished by firing squad – are clumsy and obvious. It’s a film made with no real independent personality whatsoever.

Not to mention the fact that it completely fails to draw any chemistry from the Higgins/Doolittle relationship whatsoever. It’s an odd one, as the musical takes on a romantic ending of the two characters together – an ending, by the way, that Shaw famously hated when a suggestion of it was added to the original Pygmalion production. Here, this comes from nowhere, and feels unbelievably forced and artificial as Harrison has demonstrated no interest at all (other than irritation) for Hepburn, and she in turn offers little back. When they come back together it’s hard to care.

But they cared back then as this was a huge box office smash. It’s very odd to imagine it now – because this isn’t a great film, it’s a decently done one that carries some charm but never finds an identity for itself as film away from its musical roots and never brings anything unique and imaginative to the table. It’s extraordinarily flat as a piece of film-making and seems increasingly more and more dated in its performances, its atmosphere and its staging. It’s got some charm, but I’m not sure if it’s got enough.

Becket (1964)

Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton make unlikely friends (and then enemies) in Becket

Director: Peter Glenville

Cast: Richard Burton (Thomas Becket), Peter O’Toole (Henry II), John Gielgud (Louis VII of France), Donald Wolfit (Bishop Gilbert Foliot), Martita Hunt (Empress Matilda), Pamela Brown (Eleanor of Aquitaine), David Weston (Brother John), Sian Phillips (Gwendolen), Felix Aylmer (Archbishop of Canterbury), Paolo Stoppa (Pope Alexander III), Gino Cervi (Cardinal Zambelli)

Burton and O’Toole in the same movie? There must have been a few late night benders on that shoot… You suspect actually that the backstage fun might have been just a little more sprightly and engaging than the movie itself, a lavish 1960s Hollywood Prestige film of English history. Based on Jean Anouilh’s semi-satirical play, it translates the clash between Church and State under Henry II into a very personal conflict between two men who each feel the other has let them down.

Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) is a Saxon who has risen high in the service of Henry II (Peter O’Toole) at a time when all the top jobs are held by Normans. Becket and Henry do everything together: hunting, hawking, whoring, you name it, the two of them are inseparable. But while both are sharply intelligent men, Henry is basically lazy and principally interested in enjoying life, while Becket always has a slight streak of responsibility for his people and their rights. But despite this, the two men both have England’s interests at heart and a strong friendship. So when Henry makes Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, it should work a treat, right? Well wrong, because Becket quickly begins to feel his loyalty is to the Church and God, not to Henry – and soon a debate over the legal rights of the church has blown up into a full scale clash between the two former friends. Will no one rid Henry of this turbulent priest?

Becket is a fairly sharply written, waspish play about the love/hate relationship between two men, but its themes and ideas are basically secondary to the showcasing opportunities it gives to its two lead actors. That’s pretty much what happens with this film: for all the ups and downs of the plot, the thing that really lifts this film are those two performances. Take that away and you essentially have a stately period pace, flatly and unimaginatively filmed with the look-at-the-scenery-and-costumes steadiness of other films of this genre and time. So it’s just as well that both leads are clearly having a whale of time.

Burton invests Thomas Becket with a quiet authority and a growing sense of something that, if it’s not morality, is at least a sort of moral certitude. Burton’s Becket is not the straightforward good-guy: his stances are always governed at least partly by his own pride and ambition. His defence of the Church is partly motivated by the need to secure his position, and in his career beforehand he constantly shows that he is won’t let doing the right thing damage his position at the court. But there are also touches of genuine faith throughout, and Burton plays the monologues imploring God for guidance with earnest conviction. Alongside this, he plays Becket with a great deal of wry observance and subtle wit that makes this kaleidoscopic character constantly fascinating: you never quite know what he is thinking.

Burton’s restraint also allows O’Toole more room in the more expansive role of Henry II. The powerful king – proud, controlling, intelligent and bombastic – was always a perfect role for O’Toole: indeed he would play it again four years later in another play adaptation, The Lion in Winter (becoming one of the few actors to get two Oscar nominations for the same character). O’Toole roars through the film, bringing immense energy and humour to Henry’s many scenes of intense speechifying. But what O’Toole does so well is balance this with a genuine sense of vulnerability, a genuine pain at losing Becket’s friendship. For all the power and control, O’Toole understands that Henry is essentially a very lonely man with only one man anywhere near his equal. O’Toole’s sharply intelligent, dynamic performance is a real treat.

And it feeds into the underlying theme of the film: this sense of unrequited love between the two men. Henry, for all his egotism, is clearly in love on some level with Becket: a fact that Becket seems aware of, but doesn’t quite return with the same intensity. And in fact, to double Henry’s pain, it feels like the friendship is one partly driven by Henry’s position rather than something genuine between the two men – Becket is always more guarded and more critical as a companion. Though of course that is fair enough: Henry is, however good-naturedly, a supreme ruler who cares little for the welfare of the Saxons under his rule, happy to help himself to attractive women from the peasantry if he wants them. But then perhaps it’s Becket’s very distance, his certain level of speaking truth to power, that makes him so appealing to Henry: when Becket is around, Henry has competition for smartest guy in the room.

There is a lot going on between the two leads, so it’s not surprising that much of the rest of the film doesn’t get a look in. For the other performers, John Gielgud landed an Oscar nomination for his two scenes (barely five minutes) as an arch and manipulative King of France, while Donald Wolfit is all puffed-up pomposity as Becket’s church rival. But the film is only focused on the two men and their political rivalry, so the context is always sketched in quickly, and the energy drops out of the film noticeably when they are apart. The film wants to frame the rivalry so much as a personal one that it doesn’t develop another interest in the political issues – so when scenes are obliged to focus on this, you feel the film starting to drag.

But that might also be because Anouilh’s play is famously historically inaccurate. For starters, Becket wasn’t Saxon, so his early lack of social standing makes no sense. The Constitutions of Clarendon (historically the reason for the falling-out in the first place) don’t merit a mention. Henry’s wife Eleanor of Aquitaine is presented as a shrew rather than one of the most intelligent women of the era, while Henry is also shown to be on poor terms with his mother, again contrary to the truth.

But that stuff all stems from the play, and in the end it hardly matters as the film is positioning itself as the tale of a friendship turned sour between two men. O’Toole and Burton are sublime, and if the direction and film-making around them is pretty pedestrian (although the film looks great and has an impressive score) it doesn’t really matter in an actors’ piece like this. Most of what is good from the play is carried over to the film, and the dialogue and speeches are often very strong. It’s a very stately and rather overlong play that doesn’t really keep the momentum up. But it’s still enjoyable, still has plenty to admire and even if it’s overlong and dry, it gives you performances that really sing.

Into the Woods (2014)

James Corden and Meryl Streep in the strangely flat Into the Woods

Director: Rob Marshall

Cast: Meryl Streep (The Witch), Emily Blunt (The Baker’s Wife), James Corden (The Baker), Anna Kendrick (Cinderella), Chris Pine (Cinderella’s Prince), Tracey Ullman (Jack’s Mother), Christine Baranski (Cinderella’s Mother), Johnny Depp (The Big Bad Wolf), Lilla Crawford (Little Red Riding Hood), Daniel Huttlestone (Jack), Mackenzie Mauzy (Rapunzel), Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel’s Prince), Tammy Blanchard (Florinda), Lucy Punch (Lucinda), Frances de la Tour (Giant’s Wife), Simon Russell Beale (Baker’s Father)

Musicals are big box office. Everyone has a side of themselves that enjoys the razzmatazz of song and dance numbers. In the world of the musical, Stephen Sondheim is often seen as the pinnacle of musical master craftsmen – and for years, studios had tried to bring Into the Woods, his musical reimagining of fairy tales, to the big screen. Was it worth it? Um, possibly not.

A baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are desperate to have a child. A witch (Meryl Streep) claims she has cursed them after the baker’s father (Simon Russell Beale) stole magic beans from her garden. She will lift the curse in return for four items she can use to lift a curse on her – a milk white cow, a red coat, a glass slipper and some golden hair. Well if you know anything about fairy tales it won’t take you long to figure out which tales we are going to be heading into with that list – and sure enough Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) all make appearances. But here the happy ending comes half way through the story – how will the characters deal with the impact of their choices when they have to face the consequences of their actions?

Okay I’m going to be honest, Into the Woods left me a little cold as just a musical. I didn’t really get into any of the numbers as they were playing, and the basic storyline is an odd combo: half satire, half social commentary on the dangers of getting what you want at all costs. I mean that’s clever stuff, and some big themes, but the movie certainly seems to wear them very heavily. And the movie also fails to make the musical sections engaging or inspiring – instead they are rather leadenly staged with very little real vibrancy or joy.

What’s already a rather disengaging musical isn’t helped by Rob Marshall’s leaden direction, which positions each scene with a flatness where the actors get lost in the wide screen and murky set design. Into the Woods is an astonishingly boring film to look at, murky and dimly lit, mistaking lighting (or lack of it) for mood. Every single scene is dingy and poorly framed, with events occurring in front of the viewer but never really getting engaging or interesting. Nothing strikes you interest.

It becomes a film that really isn’t that interesting to watch. This is despite some very strong efforts from nearly all the cast. Meryl Streep inevitably captured most of the praise as the Witch, and she is good, but there is something a little too artificial about her performance for my taste, something not quite heartfelt. But Emily Blunt is very good (and an excellent singer as well – who knew!) as the Baker’s wife, full of humanity and warmth. Chris Pine brings some excellent comic timing to the impossibly vain and preening Prince. There are plenty of other good moments as well, as most of the cast throw themselves into it.

But these moments keep getting lost in sequences that just aren’t interesting. For every amusing sing-off between the two princes on a waterfall, or moment of genuine warmth and charm between the baker and his wife, we get sequences of unbearable smugness (principally Johnny Depp’s appalling look-at-me cameo as the Big Bad Wolf). British character actors abound all over the place, but most have virtually nothing to do. In addition, the violence and horror elements of the original musical – as the cast deal with the terrible consequences of their actions and turn on each other – are toned down considerably.

In fact, as leading characters start dying left, right and centre, it’s not really shocking enough (as the darkness of their fates is skirted around), as Marshall’s camera meekly turns away from anything that might cause a fraction of upset. Wasn’t the whole point of fairy tales – and I suppose the original musical – to deal with both the darkness and the light? Why make such a dark musical and then try and force it into being a 12A rating? Why make a movie that tackles dark themes and then shy away from them as often as possible?

It’s part of the slightly incoherent mood of Into the Woods – it never really clicks. It doesn’t really offer much to enjoy: the musical numbers (after the opening title number) are pretty unengaging, and they are filmed with a dull unimaginativeness. Despite the money spent on it, the film looks really cheap. While there are a couple of good performances, others – like Anna Kendrick – are trying a little too hard. It’s a story that is supposed to be about the dark heart of fairy tales, and how reality after a happy ending often isn’t as jolly as we think it is – instead it’s a story that never really feels like it’s about anything.

The Madness of King George (1994)

Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren excel in this masterful adaptation of Alan Bennett’s classic play

Director: Nicholas Hytner

Cast: Nigel Hawthorne (King George III), Helen Mirren (Queen Charlotte), Ian Holm (Dr Willis), Rupert Everett (Prince of Wales) Amanda Donohoe (Lady Pembroke), Rupert Graves (Captain Greville), John Wood (Lord Chancellor Thurlow), Geoffrey Palmer (Dr Warren), Jim Carter (Charles James Fox), Julian Rhind-Tutt (Duke of York), Julian Wadham (William Pitt), Anthony Calf (Captain Fitzroy), Adrian Scarborough (Fortnum), Struan Rodger (Henry Dundas), Caroline Harker (Mrs Fitzherbert), Roger Hammond (Dr Baker), Cyril Shaps (Dr Pepys)

Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George III allegedly changed its name for the film adaptation because producers worried American audiences would feel they missed the first two films in the series. It’s not actually true, but it was a lot of free publicity for Nicholas Hytner’s film debut – a marvellous, accomplished and brilliant theatrical adaptation that will always take a firm place on my list of favourite films. It’s an excitingly well-made, hilarious and heartfelt film that captures forever Nigel Hawthorne’s greatest ever performance.

In 1788 King George III (Nigel Hawthorne) is still fuming over the loss of “the colonies” (the film front and centres talk of the plucky United States, to help sell the film in the land of the free) and the behaviour of his ambitious oldest son George (Rupert Everett). Happily married to his wife Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren), and the father of 15 children, George is a stickler for form and duty. So imagine the shock of his ministers when his behaviour becomes impulsive, irrational and finally obscene. With the king talking non-stop and impossible to control, the Prince of Wales schemes to become Prince Regent. Desperate, the king’s ministers call in Dr Willis (Ian Holm), a professional doctor of the mad, who claims he can (with time) cure the king. But will it be in time to prevent the regency?

Nicholas Hytner has rather charmingly claimed that he knew so little about film-making he didn’t realise the difficulty of many of the things he asked for, and if he had known he would never have asked. He gives much of the credit to the seasoned pros working on the film pulling out the stops to give him what he asked for. The end result is a brilliantly paced, lusciously filmed epic that is both a wonderfully moving personal story of a crotchety but lovable monarch and a witty look at regency politics. Several scenes are shot with an imaginative brilliance, from shots that throw themselves into the middle of scuffles at court with the unbalanced king, to sweeping landscape shots that make it look like the thing cost millions of dollars.

The other advantage of bringing in Hytner (director of the original stage production) was his brilliant understanding of Alan Bennett. Bennett’s script is superb, crammed with sensational lines and brilliant jokes that never get in the way of the humanity. Bennett is always more than radical than his cosy reputation suggests, and King George is a witty deconstruction of the purpose of the Royal family (politicians frequently comment on their pointlessness and George defines it as “smile and wave” and to act as “a model family”). It’s got a great understanding of the frustrating waiting game of long-serving heirs (being Prince of Wales “is not a position, it is a predicament”). The film even lands a cheeky gag at the end with the suggestion that the King’s condition was hereditary.

Hytner’s film uses the trappings of royalty brilliantly, contrasting them to great effect with the later degradation of the king – in an inspired moment, George’s first “enthroning” in the restraint chair Willis uses to condition him into behaving is soundtracked to Handel’s Zadok the Priest. George’s court is an uptight, staid place where people can’t relax (or even sit – George is so adamantly opposed to people sitting in his presence even a heavily pregnant woman is not exempt during an interminable bell-ringing version of Handel). George is a constrained figure – so it’s no wonder his insanity displays itself as an increasingly loose-lipped lack of inhibition.

The question of madness is richly handled. As Willis says, many of the mad consider themselves kings, so what does a king fancy himself as? And how can you tell what is normal for a king anyway? George is an eccentric from the start – and even his recovery at the end is basically eccentricity with an element of self-control rather than a full recovery. The film never shies away from making you invest in the rough treatment the king undergoes to wrestle him back to sanity. The doctors get short shrift, either incompetent or scheming (“When will you get it into your head that one can produce a copious, regular and exquisitely turned evacuation every day of the week and still be a stranger to reason” Geoffrey Palmer’s wonderfully dry Warren tells a toilet-obsessed colleague).

The film is slightly more confused about Willis. Strongly played, with a twinkly chippiness, by Ian Holm (who is just about perfect) the film can’t quite decide if Willis is responsible for the king’s recovery or not. It’s a battle of wills, but is Willis ahead of his time or as medieval as his colleagues? Does Willis’ aggressive conditioning (punishing bad behaviour with restraints) force the king back into sanity? Or is it George’s love of his wife that provides the final push? Or is the king naturally on an upcycle where madness expresses itself in eccentricity rather than incoherence? It’s not clear (maybe this is deliberate) but Willis’ regime of punishment and reward has a slight air of quackery.

What’s pretty deliberate was Bennett and Hytner’s insistence that only Nigel Hawthorne could play the king. Thank god they did, as Hawthorne is simply brilliant. Cheated of the Oscar in 1994, Hawthorne is compelling. He also conveys the natural authority of a king, and the “grumpy old man” side of the king is mined for brilliant comic effect. But it’s also a beautifully heartfelt and hilarious performance, running the gamut from delight in obscenities to teary fury and fear at the treatment from his doctors and loss of mental control. Such a sublime performance.

And it surely inspired some top work from the brilliant cast around him, many of whom revived their roles from the stage production (chief among these Wadham’s wonderfully dry Pitt). Helen Mirren is warm, proud and eventually desperate as Charlotte, while Rupert Everett mines the Prince of Wales for all the comic pomposity and childishness he can. Rupert Graves is excellent as a loyal equerry, while John Wood, Jim Carter and Geoffrey Palmer also excel. You’ve rarely seen such a strong cast of British stage notables, and it’s not surprising they were attracted to perform in a script that has as many good lines as this one.

It’s accomplished and luscious, is brilliantly shot and designed, and is packed full of wonderful sequences. It wears its intelligence lightly, with George as a proto-Lear struggling to hold onto his marbles. The characters even sit and read Lear at one point (“Is that wise?” questions Thurlow. “I had no idea what it was about” says the little-read Willis). George may recover his wits in time, but it’s unclear whether this makes him more or less of a human being. In many ways at the height of his insanity, he’s a warmer, friendlier person (if out of control), then he is as his buttoned-up, stickler-for-duty self.

The Madness of King George is the sort of film all theatre adaptations wish they could be, brilliantly cast, opening out into something that not only feels compelling to watch but also brings out the great depths of the original play. What is monarchy for? How can we tell if the all-powerful are mad or not? What is sanity anyway? All this and with some superb jokes, and a story that really involves you. With Nigel Hawthorne’s simply brilliant performance at the centre, this is one for the ages.

Plenty (1985)

Charles Dance and Meryl Streep endure marital misery in the bleak, oblique and uninvolving David Hare drama Plenty

Director: Fred Schepisi

Cast: Meryl Streep (Susan Traherne), Charles Dance (Raymond Brock), Tracey Ullman (Alice Park), John Gielgud (Sir Leonard Darwin), Sting (Mick), Ian McKellen (Sir Andrew Charleson), Sam Neill (Lazar)

David Hare’s 1970s play Plenty looked at the impact of peace on the war generation. A “state of the nation” story on the growth of prosperity in the post-war era, and the return of many to the humdrum reality of life with Britain’s importance as a world power in rapid decline, led to isolation, anger and depression. It’s a shame that much of that really doesn’t come across in this buttoned-up, murky and unclear social drama, with a hard-to-follow plot and a hard-to-like central character.

Susan Traherne (Meryl Streep) is an SOE courier in France during the Second World War, who has a one-night stand with fellow SOE operative Lazar (Sam Neill) which has a profound effect on her. After the war, she marries Foreign Office civil servant Raymond Brock (Charles Dance), but is unable to find a purpose and contentment in regular civilian life. As the years tick by, and their surroundings grow ever more plentiful, Susan becomes more and more unhappy, difficult and demanding.

The central issue with Plenty (I can’t comment on the play, having never seen it) is that Meryl Streep creates possibly one of the least likeable leading performance you are going to see. Perhaps mistaking Britishness for cut-glass chill – or perhaps it’s the character – Streep’s Susan is brittle, bitter, angry, annoying and infuriating. She complains about everything around her, she lashes out at people, she sulks and whines with no self-insight, she constantly makes life difficult for those around her (most of whom are unbelievably patient) and she is almost impossible to work out.

While the film perhaps intends her to be as sort-of PTSD sufferer, with undiagnosed personality disorders, who cannot reconcile the shallowness of her life with the excitement of war service, I’m not sure this comes across. All we really see is her deeply irritating self. We don’t get a sense of her war service – we see her breakdown early in the film in France – and her relationship with Lazar remains so ill-defined we are unclear what impact it had on her, other than part of a halcyon memory. The film’s final scene is a flashback to the end of the war: Susan watching a sunrise on a French hill dreaming of her life being full of days like this. That scene would have been helpful earlier – it’s the only time we see her optimistic or likeable in the film, and it gets lost by placing it at the end. With it in order we could have warmed to her more.

Instead she remains a shrill presence, in a hard to relate to film that never really makes clear whether we are meant to empathise with Susan, or find her as frustrating as some of the characters do. The film also fails to make this enigma part of its viewing design – I don’t feel like having the lines blurred made the film a richer experience, just one it was harder to engage in. Schepisi’s directing style is very cold and distant – from the slow camera moves, to the tight close ups on Susan at key moments, to the deliberate lack of clear time line (each scene moves on weeks, months or years from the previous one with only a few design and dialogue hints to suggest the change).

Combined with Hare’s indefinable script – crammed with elliptical conversations, unclear emotional and dramatic points, and political points delivered with a querying shrug – it makes for a film that is very hard work to engage with – and doesn’t offer much to reward the viewer if they do.

What pleasures there are come from the performers. Charles Dance is good as Susan’s long-suffering husband – far from a domineering patriarch, his only real crime seems to be that he is a bit boring. Ian McKellen makes a great cameo as a senior civil servant, coolly and calmly telling Susan the errors of her thinking. Sting is an odd choice (I suspect his presence helped the film get backing) and Tracey Ullman does tend to go too far as Susan’s bohemian but more emotionally restrained friend.

John Gielgud steals the show. He is simply superb as Brock’s boss, an old-school diplomat who is, at first, a figure of fun with his Edwardian values but whom events (in particular Suez) reveal to have firm principles. Gielgud also gets most of the film’s best lines, while his quiet air of polite dignity is both endearing and admirable. His delivery of the following line to a tedious bore of a party guest basically is the high point of the movie: “But perhaps before I go, I may nevertheless set you right on a point of fact. Ingmar Bergman is not a bloody Norwegian, he is a bloody Swede.”

But there aren’t enough pleasures like this in this overbearing, rather trying film that never really decides what point it’s trying to make. I think it’s something about wealth and discontent and the more selfish and scrambling build of the post-war generation towards Thatcherism. But I’m really not sure. And to be honest I’m not sure I care.

Othello (1995)

Laurence Fishburne falls foul of Kenneth Branagh’s schemes in this traditional but decent Othello adaptation

Director: Oliver Parker

Cast: Laurence Fishburne (Othello), Irène Jacob (Desdemona), Kenneth Branagh (Iago), Nathaniel Parker (Cassio), Michael Maloney (Roderigo), Anna Patrick (Emilia), Nicholas Farrell (Montano), Indra Ové (Bianca), Michael Sheen (Lodovico), Gabriele Ferzetti (Duke of Venice), Pierre Vaneck (Brabantio)

Othello is perhaps one of the most famous tales of betrayal and jealousy ever written. And yet Shakespeare’s tale of the noble general who descends into murder when convinced by his trusted ensign Iago that his wife is unfaithful, hasn’t often been made into a film. This is probably because its lead role requires a black actor and – for depressing historical reasons – most films aren’t considered good investments without a famous white actor in the lead (of course this has also been the case on stage). So we’ve had blacked-up performances from Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier and Anthony Hopkins – but this was the first proper adaptation of the play with a black actor in the lead role.

As the two leads, Laurence Fishburne and Irène Jacob are a mixed bag. Fishbourne has all the dignity and statue of the great general, and he brings a muscular physicality to the role which really works. He has a wonderful timbre to his voice and he handles the disintegration very well. He does sometimes feel a little hidebound by the language – treating the dialogue with a little too much reverence – but he’s the most believable Moorish general (for many reasons…) you’ve seen on screen so far. Jacob has greater difficulties – although many of these I think are due to this being her first film in English (talk about jumping in at the deep end) – and attempts to make Desdemona a free-spirit don’t really work that well.

Oliver Parker claimed he wanted to cast actors who weren’t associated with Shakespeare. Bizarre then that his cast is rounded out by Kenneth Branagh, the actor perhaps more associated with Shakespeare than anyone else alive. But then I guess when you can get Branagh in your movie, you aren’t going to say no. And it’s great he did, because this might just be one of Branagh’s finest Shakespearean performances: as if not also directing the thing (although many people mistakenly think he did!) freed him up to just focus on his performance. (It’s unfortunate for the other two leads that Branagh’s skill with both Shakespearean dialogue and performing it for the movies also serves to point up Fishburne’s more traditional take and Jacob’s discomfort.)

His Iago is superb, and he plays the part just right, never tipping the wink during his scenes with various characters, but playing Iago totally straight and completely genuine. He appears to be a decent, kind, lovely guy to everyone: it’s only in those asides to the camera that we see his real self, although even here he treats us with just as much charm. His Iago is the sort of guy you’d go for a drink with – and then be shocked to hear he had smilingly bad mouthed you to all your friends. Branagh also adds a homosexual undertone to the film, his Iago having incredibly mixed, repressed feelings about Othello: he seems genuinely moved when Othello makes him his lieutenant and a half twitch of regret crosses his face when the general dies.

Not that it stops him from being a bastard the rest of the time – and Parker does a very neat line in bringing the pivotal seduction of Othello to life on camera. On stage, Iago’s entrapment of Othello is a single, poison-dripping conversation – here, taking advantage of what you can do with film and editing, Parker spreads it over three locations: first a training-ground skirmish outside (where Othello bests Iago), then a sort of armoury changing room (where the outside is still visible), then finally a dungeon. As each lie gets more seductive, so Othello is literally dragged deeper and deeper into the castle. Then we get a neat flip: when he’s fully sold on Desdemona’s treachery, and begins raging and storming, we end up on huge open beaches or castle battlements, as if Othello has been reborn into a larger, refocused world.

This device smoothe out one of the problems with the original play – rather than Iago turning Othello against his supposedly beloved wife during one chat, the cuts from location to location (and different times of day) give the impression of a prolonged disintegration. Othello begins to get the first lines of each section, giving the impression that he has been dwelling on these lies in the interim, and that he is now the one bringing the subject back up, unable to stop prodding at it. It’s makes for a more convincing (and modern) psychological portrait of the corrosive triumph of jealousy than can be achieved in a traditional stage version.

The film has moments of invention – at one point Iago pours poison into Roderigo’s ear while they lie under a wagon where a couple are noisily rutting – and it does some really interesting stuff as mentioned with the “seduction” of Othello. Parker also throws in some expected cinematic tricks – so we get moments of Othello fantasising over Cassio and Desdemona together. But Parker’s not the most unique or challenging director, and he mostly shoots the film with a traditional straight forwardness, using a very traditional setting and editing style.

The film has other problems, too. Othello and Desdemona don’t have much chemistry between them, and Fishburne’s emotionally distant performance makes Othello harder to root for. Maybe this is just Branagh unbalancing the film – his Iago is so compelling, it throws off the film. Parker tries to make Desdemona a stronger character, but this doesn’t always work. Jacob’s slightly awkward tension with Shakespeare is part of this, but we also get the confusion of a Desdemona who fights for her life at the film’s conclusion and then strokes her husband’s head with affection as she dies.

Other performances don’t quite work. Michael Maloney is too overblown as Roderigo – though this Shakespearean wimp does at least get to genuinely threaten Iago and is slightly more convincing for the series of fights Iago puts him up to. Between them, the script editor and Anna Patrick turn Emilia, one of the play’s most intriguing characters, into a blank – she barely has a line in the first hour, and those she does have are delivered pretty blandly. Nathaniel Parker, though, is pretty good as Cassio (incidentally, Parker is of course the director’s brother, and Anna Patrick is the director’s sister-in-law – it’s a home movie!).

The main problem? As the play heats up to the final confrontations, the film slows right down. It’s hard to believe – as we enter Act 5 of the play – that there could still be half an hour of the film left, so snappy have the first four acts been. But the film dawdles and drags over the finishing line – and all the chase scenes of a desperately fleeing Iago can’t save it. For a film which has trimmed the play quite successfully into something sleek and fast-paced, it’s a shame that it drops all this for a wordy and over-played final half hour.

Of course Parker throws in decent moments: I like Cassio slipping Othello the knife he’ll use to kill himself. I really like Iago crawling his way on the bed loaded with dead characters, as if to try and force himself back into their story. The symbolism has been overplayed – and the image of two bodies buried at sea, water trails entwining, has been signposted far too often earlier – but these small moments work, even while the rest of the film’s conclusion drags. And maybe that’s because you don’t really care that much about Othello – he’s never seemed like a character easy to empathise with. And without that, the film can never completely work.

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1971)

Janet Suzman and Alan Bates balance the pressure of bringing up a paralysed daughter in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

Director: Peter Medak

Cast: Alan Bates (Bri), Janet Suzman (Shelia), Peter Bowles (Freddie), Shelia Gish (Pam), Joan Hickson (Grace), Elizabeth Robillard (Jo), Murray Melvyn (Doctor), Constance Chapman (Moonrocket lady)

The playwright Peter Nichols’ daughter Abigail was born in 1960, suffering from severe physical and mental disabilities, requiring 24-hour care from her parents. Nichols transformed the experience into a play about two parents who struggle to care for their daughter, and spin out little fantasy conversations with their child, indulging in flights of fancy even while her father wonders if it is even worth carrying on with looking after a child who will never experience any improvement or independent life.

Alan Bates plays the husband Bri, a put-upon teacher at a boys’ school, prone to flights of comic fantasy. Bri feels increasingly frustrated about the unacknowledged strain their handicapped daughter Jo is placing on his marriage to Shelia (Janet Suzman), whose focus is almost exclusively on looking after their daughter. The couple use often surreal black humour to cope with the constant pressure of caring for the child.

The excellent Indicator blu-ray contains a fascinating interview with Peter Nichols, who clearly didn’t care for the film. He found it off-balance, too emotionally overwrought, too realist and essentially too depressing. He’s probably right. The play is a finely balanced mixture of near stand-up comedy and marital grief. Bri’s comic moments are vaudeville fantasy sequences, with funny accents and larger-than-life characters pulled together. This toying with the fourth-wall just can’t be translated in to cinema here, instead the film downplays the dark humour and humanity of the piece, and instead makes it a rather heavy-handed and glum watch.

Bates still has many of the essentially comic funny voices and character-based routines – there are sequences where he acts out the roles of various doctors and priests who have consulted on Jo in the past. But his performance is just a little too eccentric, a little too out-there, a little too twitchy – frankly it makes him hard to engage and empathise with. Maybe it’s the changing times that haven’t helped, but Bri’s constant whining that his sex life has been destroyed just doesn’t sound right.

Of course, Nichols is using this whining to touch upon the damage done by the pressure of constantly caring for a daughter who will never show any signs of improvement and never be capable of communicating with her parents. Nichols knows of what he speaks: he and his wife eventually hospitalised their daughter (and had two other children) – and he believes the parents should have done the same in his play. By making the entire focus of their life a child who is, essentially, an object (twice at opposite ends of the film she is pushed into a room slumped over a wheelchair), it’s clear the couple are causing no end of damage to their emotional lives. Maybe it’s just heavier going as well because the film features a real child – while the play used theatrical invention to represent the child.

The film slightly unbalances itself by moving away from black humour to emotional impact. Maybe part of this is due to Janet Suzman’s astonishingly strong performance as Shelia, a part she invests with great layers of emotion and hope, constantly refusing to give up hope that one day Jo may respond. Suzman has one extremely emotional speech, recounting a moment where Jo pushed over some play blocks, which she delivers with a teary, earnest, simplicity to the camera which is profoundly moving. It probably makes Bates’ performance seem a little more irritating than it actually is, because she is strong.

And that is a problem with the film, because in order for it to work you need to bond with both parents. You need to share and be inspired by Shelia’s hope, while at the same time see that Bri’s more realistic perceptive, and his dark longings to end Jo’s life of suffering, are in many ways just as legitimate. The film is all about this issue of euthanasia – conversations dance around it constantly – and it largely manages not to fall either side of the issue. There are points on both sides – and the real issue is should the parents find some other way to get support and help with caring for their daughter? Instead you don’t quite bond with both parents the way you need too. You feel Bri is a bit too sharp, and that Shelia is a bit too unrealistic in what she believes in.

The second half of the film introduces most of the secondary characters, particular Freddie and Pam (expertly played by Freddie Bowles and Shelia Gish), giving us a fresh perspective on the events. Freddie is bluntly concerned in a jolly way with doing what he can to help and urges the couple to consider hospitalisation. Pam, however, behaves with the awkward embarrassment many of us are ashamed to admit we feel when confronted with the seriously paralysed. We also get to see more of Joan Hickson (the only cast member from the original stage production) as Bri’s brassy and difficult mother, whose attempts to help largely only serve to increase tensions.

It slowly becomes clear though that this is a film about the collapse of a marriage under pressure, even more than about caring for a disabled child. But shorn of much of its humour – the fantasy sequences don’t really work, because they feel a little too heightened and overplayed – the film turns the play into something really quite bleak. It’s frankly a little too depressing and overbearing to really enjoy. It has plenty of good performances, but doesn’t really open up the play and instead turns it into an intense, rather overbearing chamber piece. A film that loses its balance from the stage version, and instead becomes something quite glum, in which Bates’ Bri doesn’t really win our sympathy as you feel he should do. It’s a tougher watch than Nichols intended – surely why he wasn’t really happy with it.