Plenty (1985)

Less than meets the eye

It seems a cheap shot to say that there's not much to Plenty, but Meryl Streep's rather wearingly one-note performance does tend to show up the thinness of the material. Despite his penchant for bombastic metaphor and excruciatingly on-the-nose dialogue, David Hare's adaptation of his play feels rather closer to naturalism than usual, but when the woman whose dilemma at the heart of his big theme is so resoundingly one-note you do feel as if you're just being told the same thing over and over again. Streep is the former SOE worker who, like Britain itself, was at her best and most noble during the war but struggles to come to terms with the post-war reality of stagnation, emptiness and missed opportunities in a country whose soul-crushing bureaucracy grows as its empire shrinks. Which is a perfectly serviceable metaphor for post-war disillusionment even if the WW2 scenes in France have absolutely no vitality or danger to them to provide much of a contrast. Unfortunately it's another case of the actress giving an accent rather than a performance, and a not entirely convincing one at that. She just says the words, overpronouncing one or two from time to time and plays the superficial surface attention-seeking big moments rather than showing us what's inside, which gets to be like watching Lady MacBeth's mad scene for two hours. Rather than a woman being stifled in a world where expression is frowned upon, there's not much sign that there was ever a person in there to begin with. The only scene where she convinces is the final flashback, and at the cost of losing dramatic irony it may have been better had the scene been moved earlier in the picture to give a sense of the hope and ideals that are dashed.

Not that Streep is the only offender. Almost everyone is very visibly giving a performance, as if reminding us that this used to be a play. Tracey Ullman delivers a particularly awful supporting turn, sounding like she's doing a bad voice over for a preschool cartoon character as her affectedly bohemian best friend. Ian McKellan does little more than a second-rate Alan Bates impersonation despite being gifted one of the film's better scenes explaining the diplomatic mindset that has drowned the brief spurt of post-war optimism. Only John Gielgud's betrayed civil servant, stretching himself just a little bit more than his latter roles usually required, and an excellent Charles Dance as Streep's devoted but constantly frustrated minor diplomat husband who never realizes he's the personification of many of her problems really shine. The film improves as it progresses despite Fred Schepisi's often coldly detached direction, and there are good moments - a dinner party from hell at the height of the Suez Crisis chief among them - but they just aren't quite enough to make up for the void at its heart. In a way, this feels like a film that may have been made too soon. Cate Blanchett played the role in a West End revival a few years ago and brought out the nuance and struggle within the character far more convincingly. Still, at least the film does offer Gielgud telling a Burmese diplomat's wife that "Ingmar Bergman is NOT a bloody Norwegian, he is a bloody Swede."

July 31, 2008

Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar

A commentator here claims to have seen this film 50X and is prepared to see it 50X more.

Few films if any (unless I am studying to become an actor) would draw that much interest.

Streep does a good job playing a troubled woman who lives in the past but who is embroiled in the present that has little future for her. She does not know what she really wants and expects so much. She sure can manipulate.
There are people who say that they were born in the wrong century or period. Many of us long to be someplace else that appears to have been better....more exciting. Westerns sometime do that to me. In reality a 2 hr western could be 20 years or more of ones life....perhaps not that exciting after all.
I recently watched Streep in Holocaust. 1978 film. July 5, 2008

Hare Delivers The Goods

Socialists have a serious problem of convincing themselves and others that life would be improved by an expansive government. They have trouble convincing anyone that our lives would be improved by having our property confiscated and distributed to our less fortunate brethren. Yes, it is a hard sell this socialism, which is why most socialists don't talk about the future. Socialism belongs to the past. There is, of course, no socialist utopia that can be pointed out, so here Hare, an old agitprop playwright, has found the French resistance as a metaphor for the utopia he yearns for. In America, leftists identify the 60s as a time for triumphant social involvement. The problem with this kind of nostalgia is that intellectually one fails to face certain brutal truths. The resistance, which no doubt had its moments of personal heroism, was paid for by capitalist America and by the earnings of England's soon to be bankrupted Empire. The 60s were funded by the American business class that bankrolled its children's escapades. Hare's utopia, in short, was a panty- raid, a kind of Spanish Civil War all over again, paid for by the great nascent empire emerging across the Atlantic. Good times were had by all, yes, that is one way of thinking of WWII. Sex, daring, sadness: almost as good as a trip on the Titanic without the iceberg. This play is a thrill, but I don't believe that post-war life was empty and pointless. Susan, Hare's heroine, was a spoiled, cruelly selfish woman who, not unlike pre-war aristocratic adventuresses, simply couldn't find a way to occupy her time once she'd landed a rich husband. July 7, 2007

A Mackerel Sky

Meryl Streep gives a heartbreaking performance in this deeply affecting and brilliant film about a woman trapped forever in the past. Susan Traherne might appear on paper to be a selfish and unlikable woman, but Streep somehow manages to let the audience see her inner anguish and restlessness, and her quiet desperation at not being able to recapture the feeling of living life to its fullest; something she experienced during WWII as a Resistance fighter in France. It is one of the most exquisite performances ever captured on film.

Fred Schepisi crafted this Edward R. Pressman produced RKO film from a play by David Hare. There is a fine cast which lend support to Meryl Streep, including a winning turn from Tracey Ullman as Susan's wild and irreverent friend, Alice Park. Beautifully shot in several countries, the viewer feels as if they too are trapped in a moment in time. It is a poignant and wistfull moment, however, and in the end, the ache that runs through this story is fully driven home by a flashback of a joyful Susan shortly after the war ended.

When the film opens, Susan is waiting in the dark with other Resistance fighters when a paratrooper they had not been expecting lands in their area. Sam Neill is Lazar, who has landed far from his intended location. Once the weapons are lowered and he is identified, Susan will escort him to the nearby village. Lazar saves her life from a group of Germans on night patrol, and Susan's vulnerability in that moment bonds the two together in a tender manner brought about by war.

Susan and Lazar will share a brief but intense intimacy only those who have shared some danger with another can understand. When he gets the message to leave due to impending danger, he will leave behind a momento of the time they shared that she will carry with her for life; a reminder of a life with meaning she longs to return to. The Germans murder a man in the streets they believe to be Lazar, while he escapes by bicycle. Susan watches as her life disappears with a touch of the cap; the only gesture he dare show.

Susan after the war is restless and strong willed. She wants to change everything but does not know how. She is unable to remain ensconced in a job or situation for any length of time and longs for that hour or two during the Resistance when she saw bravery, and the best in people. It is much more than nostalgia, but a paralyzing ache that will cause her to always move on. Streep lets us see into Susan's soul, and rather than being unsympathetic because of her character's outward actions, we fall in love with her from the inside out and want to save her.

She meets a diplomat named Raymond Brock (Charles Dance) who shows kindness to her in a sensitive situation. They have a romance that will eventually come to an end, or so it would seem, when she can not leave the past in France behind and move forward with her life. The one constant during all this turmoil is the spirited Alice (Tracey Ullman). She is a free soul and lives her life as she pleases, which is often to her detriment.

Susan's anguish begins to worsen, and once she makes a proposition to a bloke named Mick, her world begins to unravel. Sting is very good as Mick, who is in way over his head with Susan and her friend Alice. Just over his head is where the bullets will land when Susan finally has a mental breakdown. It is Raymond who will return to pick up the pieces. When the ambassador, portrayed with stoic flair by John Gielgud, decides to resign, Raymond will get a post in Egypt, where Susan is far from Europe and her memories.

She is also far from herself, as her friend Alice will discover when she comes to visit. The languid pace and sandy colors of Egypt would seem to agree with Susan. She is lovely and sedate, but it is because she is, in fact, sedated. Susan is a picture of serenity, but her spirit is not in evidence. It is only when Alice speaks to Raymond in her defence that she shows a glimmer of her former self.

The seed has been planted, and when the ambassador dies, Susan decides to return to England for the funeral, against her husband's wishes. It is in England she will remain, forcing Raymond to abandon his post, effectively ruining his career. Susan does not want him to suffer because of her, and has a talk with his superior with disastrous results. It will force a confrontation between she and Raymond in which she will leave her home. It is a poignant scene as she walks down the street, a bit unsteady. We know she will never return.

Lazar tracks her down from a BBC broadcast about the Resistance, and they have a reunion which proves to be too late. France is too far away to reach after so much damage has been done. We will see a joyful and hopeful Susan in a golden field in France after the war, and our hearts will break at a life which never happened.

Magnificent is not a strong enough word for Meryl Streep's performance in "Plenty." It is one of the most memorable you will ever see in film. A beautiful refrain played by the London Symphony Orchestra haunts this film, and each time I hear it still, I see Meryl Streep in that field in France, with a world of promise in front of her. This is a movie, and a performance, no film lover should miss.


October 9, 2005

One of Meryl Streep's finest performances and a really excellent film!

Plenty is one of my all-time favourite films. I loved this movie.

I understand why many people did not like it, but I think they should have another look. Sure, it is not an easy movie to watch, and Meryl Streep's character is not the most pleasant woman in the world, but that is part of the point. "Plenty" is unabashedly unsentimental, and that is one of its greatest strengths.

Meryl Streep gives one of her best performances, and it's not only because of her flawless British accent. That is just the surface of Ms. Streep's complete, and absolutely brilliant transformation into a very complicated character. She is also sexier than she has ever been on screen up to that time. She looks simply beautiful!!

This film is about as performance-oriented as films get, and it is full of great performances -the entire cast is excellent!!

"Plenty" is a movie about how different life can turn out from the way we plan it. It is not supposed to be cheerful. It is gritty, gripping, and extremely powerful. It portrays the hardships of Resistance era France, and the harsh realities of Britain immediately after the Second World War; as well as the decadence that prosperity can bring, and the disappointments of life, and how the inability to deal with them can destroy a person's sanity.

Of particular note are Charles Dance, as Streep's husband, Sam Neil as her lover, Sting and Tracey Ullman in small but important supporting roles, and especially Sir John Gielgud, who effortlessly steals the few scenes he is in. In one of the movie's few comic moments, Mr. Gielgud corrects the wife of a Burmese diplomat just as he is leaving a dinner party on the nationality of a certain European film director. Just this scene makes the movie worth watching!

I have seen this movie described as an underrated tour-de-force. That is an extremely fitting description. I would add the word classic to that description. This is a film that challenges the viewer to sit through its grim depictions of what life can be like if we don't know how to deal with life not turning out like we want it to. Depicting different eras from the Second World War to the early to mid sixties, "Plenty" is a period piece with painstaking recreations and some incredible locations in England, France and Jordan.

If someone has not seen this movie, I urge them to buy it or rent it and watch it. For a long time, this film was not available in widescreen on home video. Now there is at least one widescreen DVD which restores the film to its stunning beauty and allows us to enjoy its excellent cinematography. To anyone who appreciates great acting, this film is a MUST SEE. No serious film collector should be without this great classic.

If someone has seen it but did not like it, I urge them to watch it again, and again.

I have seen this film at least 50 times, and I could easily watch it 50 times more. September 25, 2005

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