Directed by:
Joseph LoseyScreenplay:
Harold PinterCinematography:
Gerry FisherComposer:
Michel LegrandCast:
Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave, Dominic Guard, Michael Gough, Edward Fox, Richard Gibson, Roger Lloyd Pack, John Rees (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
An old man (Michael Redgrave) thinks back to a summer many years before when, as a young boy, he stayed with the aristocratic Maudsley family in their beautiful house in the Norfolk countryside. On the threshold of adolescence, intensely curious about sex, he became the go-between for Marian Maudsley (Julie Christie) and local farmer Ted Burgess (Alan Bates) as they conducted an affair behind the backs of the Maudsley family. This is a slow-moving but beguiling story of lost innocence. There's a subtlety and intelligence here rarely found in British costume dramas. The filmmakers go to enormous lengths to recreate Edwardian England, but never allow the period detail to stifle the storytelling. Although life with the Maudsleys seems idyllic--an endless round of picnics, cricket matches and parties--there is always an undercurrent of violence. The Maudsleys are inveterate snobs. The terrifying Mrs Maudsley (played by Margaret Leighton) simply can't countenance the idea that her daughter would have an affair with a man so far beneath her on the social scale as Burgess. The little boy carries the messages between the lovers without ever quite understanding how explosive their contents are. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Reviews (1)
The story of a failed unequal (class) love, mediated by a little boy, who not only discovers the functioning of English aristocratic customs from the turn of the century but also finds answers to his own childhood questions. Although it is not a particularly innovative topic, it was soberly processed to my liking and without kitschy romantic schemes, which made the story seem believable to me.
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