The opening sequence with its nostalgia inducing drive along the winding road back to Darlington Hall, hauntingly accompanied by Richard Robbins (`Howards End') splendid musical score, is surely too redolent of Daphne Du Maurier's famous first line in `Rebecca' (`Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again') to be purely an uncanny coincidence. This stylish beginning by director James Ivory (along with his usual partners of producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, also responsible for those peerless adaptations of E. M. Forster's `A Room With A View' and `Howards End') typifies the whole of this beautifully crafted film, based on Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker Prize novel. The gorgeous cinematography by Tony Pierce-Roberts (`Howards End') ends with an equally memorable aerial scenic panorama of the hall and its estate, whilst throughout careful attention is paid to the story and its characters, and not just the detail.
Told in flashback, the events begin in 1958 with the butler Mr. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins a stratosphere away from Hannibal Lecter) taking a break from his employ to visit the former housekeeper, Sally Kenton (Emma Thompson; `Sense and Sensibility') to try to entice her back into service for the new owner, ex-congressman Lewis (Christopher Reeve as a typical American, prior to his tragic paralysing accident in 1995) who was previously a guest of Lord Darlington before the Second World War. Lewis inadvertently touches a raw nerve when he jest's to Stevens if his intended recruit is an old girlfriend.
On his quest to reach his old helpmate now in retirement in a friend's boarding house in Cleveden, Stevens has a chance to reflect on his original impression of Miss Kenton and it becomes clear that he realises all too late the missed opportunity. Stevens' failure to recognise Kenton's love for him and his feelings for her lead to at least two unfulfilled lives with Kenton's marriage to another colleague, Tom Ben (Tim Pigott-Smith), also breaking down. Although Stevens' attempt to abrogate his obvious mistake after some twenty years is sadly in vain, his reformed character offers the kindly personal counsel to the now Mrs Ben to do all she can to make her years happy for herself and her husband. This is a salutary tale of a life obligated in the service of others at the sacrifice of oneself. The film's message is plainly about finding the balance between serving others and remembering the duty to yourself, no matter how late in life you come to realise this.
Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson (reunited from the previous year's superb `Howards End') as the stiff fealty bound butler and the devoted housekeeper, provide us with two of their career best performances, painfully involving us in the tragedy of love denied. The interplay between the two protagonists brings out the nature of the tale to heart-rending precision, shown most noticeably in the scenes where Kenton surprises Stevens reading a romance novel, and when she is found sobbing by him, after announcing her engagement and intention of leaving, he can only insensitively talk to her of a dusting detail that has been overlooked. The visual and narrative interpretations do full justice to the author's artifice of observing the world narrowly through Stevens' mind. The domesticity of the hall is observed in minutiae against the backdrop of world politics, whilst the owner, Lord Darlington (a typically urbane James Fox), believes that Germany was unfairly treated after World War I, and is determined to help `her' regain international standing. The history here patently reflects on Neville Chamberlain's infamous `piece of paper' (Munich Agreement) in 1938 and his appeasement policy over the two years leading to the outbreak of war in 1939 when perhaps decisive action earlier could have altered things. Ill-informed military intelligence regarding German rearmament was equally as culpable as political and religious (especially Roman Catholic) weakness, as well as the unjust Treaty of Versailles itself. Lord Darlington's appeasement conferences and his links with Germany, which led to the term Traitor's Nest' being coined by a newspaper, are also a thinly veiled reference to the Duke of Windsor's collaboration with the fascist regime. Congressman Lewis criticises the gentlemen politicians as amateurs, blind to the realities of the world around them, and urges them to leave foreign affairs to the professionals.
Stevens' loyal servitude is unquestioning of his master's politics (whom hindsight would show was misguided in his pro-German and anti-Semitic stance, rather than inherently evil) regarding it as not his place to have any views. Both men come to realise after the War that Lord Darlington's sense of honour, along with his gullible nature and good intentions were taken advantage of till he became a dupe of the Nazis. When Kenton confesses to Stevens of being a coward and afraid of being alone, in failing to fulfill her threat to leave when their Lordship dismisses two German girls for being Jewish, he can only restrict himself to stressing how important she is to the house.
Noteworthy roles are also provided by Hugh Grant, who for once is non-stammering as Lord Darlington's godson amused by Stevens' euphemistically vague attempts, under his employer's absurd request, to explain the facts of life regarding `birds and bees'; and Peter Vaughan (his many TV credits include `Porridge' and `Our Friends in the North') portrays Stevens' father as repressed of human emotion as his son, but in his case who obviously allowed himself the luxury of indulging a biological need at least once. When during a banquet Stevens senior collapses, his son stubbornly refuses to leave his post, in the interests of his blind sense of duty.
Although this film was deservedly nominated for several key Oscars and Baftas in 1994, it was, together with Martin Scorcese's similarly themed `The Age of Innocence', and another nominated role for Emma Thompson for `In the Name of the Father', unfortunately eclipsed in an outstanding year by Steven Spielberg's harrowing `Schindler's List', as well as Jan Chapman and Jane Campion's highly original `The Piano'.
Told in flashback, the events begin in 1958 with the butler Mr. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins a stratosphere away from Hannibal Lecter) taking a break from his employ to visit the former housekeeper, Sally Kenton (Emma Thompson; `Sense and Sensibility') to try to entice her back into service for the new owner, ex-congressman Lewis (Christopher Reeve as a typical American, prior to his tragic paralysing accident in 1995) who was previously a guest of Lord Darlington before the Second World War. Lewis inadvertently touches a raw nerve when he jest's to Stevens if his intended recruit is an old girlfriend.
On his quest to reach his old helpmate now in retirement in a friend's boarding house in Cleveden, Stevens has a chance to reflect on his original impression of Miss Kenton and it becomes clear that he realises all too late the missed opportunity. Stevens' failure to recognise Kenton's love for him and his feelings for her lead to at least two unfulfilled lives with Kenton's marriage to another colleague, Tom Ben (Tim Pigott-Smith), also breaking down. Although Stevens' attempt to abrogate his obvious mistake after some twenty years is sadly in vain, his reformed character offers the kindly personal counsel to the now Mrs Ben to do all she can to make her years happy for herself and her husband. This is a salutary tale of a life obligated in the service of others at the sacrifice of oneself. The film's message is plainly about finding the balance between serving others and remembering the duty to yourself, no matter how late in life you come to realise this.
Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson (reunited from the previous year's superb `Howards End') as the stiff fealty bound butler and the devoted housekeeper, provide us with two of their career best performances, painfully involving us in the tragedy of love denied. The interplay between the two protagonists brings out the nature of the tale to heart-rending precision, shown most noticeably in the scenes where Kenton surprises Stevens reading a romance novel, and when she is found sobbing by him, after announcing her engagement and intention of leaving, he can only insensitively talk to her of a dusting detail that has been overlooked. The visual and narrative interpretations do full justice to the author's artifice of observing the world narrowly through Stevens' mind. The domesticity of the hall is observed in minutiae against the backdrop of world politics, whilst the owner, Lord Darlington (a typically urbane James Fox), believes that Germany was unfairly treated after World War I, and is determined to help `her' regain international standing. The history here patently reflects on Neville Chamberlain's infamous `piece of paper' (Munich Agreement) in 1938 and his appeasement policy over the two years leading to the outbreak of war in 1939 when perhaps decisive action earlier could have altered things. Ill-informed military intelligence regarding German rearmament was equally as culpable as political and religious (especially Roman Catholic) weakness, as well as the unjust Treaty of Versailles itself. Lord Darlington's appeasement conferences and his links with Germany, which led to the term Traitor's Nest' being coined by a newspaper, are also a thinly veiled reference to the Duke of Windsor's collaboration with the fascist regime. Congressman Lewis criticises the gentlemen politicians as amateurs, blind to the realities of the world around them, and urges them to leave foreign affairs to the professionals.
Stevens' loyal servitude is unquestioning of his master's politics (whom hindsight would show was misguided in his pro-German and anti-Semitic stance, rather than inherently evil) regarding it as not his place to have any views. Both men come to realise after the War that Lord Darlington's sense of honour, along with his gullible nature and good intentions were taken advantage of till he became a dupe of the Nazis. When Kenton confesses to Stevens of being a coward and afraid of being alone, in failing to fulfill her threat to leave when their Lordship dismisses two German girls for being Jewish, he can only restrict himself to stressing how important she is to the house.
Noteworthy roles are also provided by Hugh Grant, who for once is non-stammering as Lord Darlington's godson amused by Stevens' euphemistically vague attempts, under his employer's absurd request, to explain the facts of life regarding `birds and bees'; and Peter Vaughan (his many TV credits include `Porridge' and `Our Friends in the North') portrays Stevens' father as repressed of human emotion as his son, but in his case who obviously allowed himself the luxury of indulging a biological need at least once. When during a banquet Stevens senior collapses, his son stubbornly refuses to leave his post, in the interests of his blind sense of duty.
Although this film was deservedly nominated for several key Oscars and Baftas in 1994, it was, together with Martin Scorcese's similarly themed `The Age of Innocence', and another nominated role for Emma Thompson for `In the Name of the Father', unfortunately eclipsed in an outstanding year by Steven Spielberg's harrowing `Schindler's List', as well as Jan Chapman and Jane Campion's highly original `The Piano'.