The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Karel Reisz

Writers:

John Fowles (novel)
Harold Pinter (screenplay)

Release Date:

August 1981 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

She was lost from the moment she saw him.

Plot:

A film is being made of a story, set in 19th century England, about Charles, a biologist who's engaged to be married...

Plot Keywords:

Melancholy | Love | 19th Century | Behind The Scenes | Lieutenant

Awards:

Nominated for 5 Oscars. Another 9 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Meryl Streep	...	Sarah / Anna
Jeremy Irons	...	Charles Henry Smithson / Mike
Hilton McRae	...	Sam
Emily Morgan	...	Mary
Charlotte Mitchell	...	Mrs. Tranter
Lynsey Baxter	...	Ernestina
Jean Faulds	...	Cook
Peter Vaughan	...	Mr. Freeman
Colin Jeavons	...	Vicar
Liz Smith	...	Mrs. Fairley
Patience Collier	...	Mrs. Poulteney
John Barrett	...	Dairyman
Leo McKern	...	Dr. Grogan
Arabella Weir	...	Girl on undercliff
Ben Forster	...	Boy on undercliff

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | Singapore:M18 | Australia:M | Argentina:16 | Finland:S | Norway:16 | Sweden:11 | UK:12 (video re-rating) (2001) | UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:AA (original rating) | USA:R (certificate #26244) | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Borough Market, Borough, London, England, UK

Company:

Juniper Films

Trivia:

An attempt to adapt the novel was made in the 1970's, to star Vanessa Redgrave, but a satisfactory script couldn't be written, and funding was a problem.

Goofs:

Continuity: Early in the film, as Charles is going on to the jetty to warn Sarah, his cape changes in how it is buttoned from shot to shot.

Quotes:

Sarah: I have set myself beyond the pale. I am nothing. I am hardly human any more.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Comedy Connections: The Fast Show (#4.1)" (2006)

Dramatic tale of dual affairs failed to engage me

This appears to be a well crafted film, an artistically done 'story within a story'. However, though I realize I am in the minority and the movie's praises were universally sung, I personally did not care for it, finding it somewhat boring, occasionally confusing, and worst of all, NOT emotionally engaging.

The film relates the story of two romances...the affair between two actors, Anna (Meryl Streep) and Mike (Jeremy Irons), who are playing the roles of lovers Sarah Woodruff and Charles Smithson, in a movie set back in 19th Century Britain. Frankly, the darting back and forth between the two affairs, creative though it may have been, was for me simply distracting. I found that I couldn't really become emotionally involved with either couple, and was sometimes even confused as to the point being made.

The stars are accomplished actors and their performances were lauded at the time. Personally, Meryl Streep is normally not my favorite actress as I feel she tends to overact, though I really liked her in Music of the Heart. Jeremy Irons is certainly competent and was quite brilliant in The Mission.

The modern relationship between Anna and Mike simply bored me. During her husband's absence, Anna is indulging in an affair while on location with her co-star. I found this pair unsympathetic and their affair uninteresting. Even THEY did not seem that interested in it! I would have preferred NO story within a story, but simply ONE romance, the Victorian couple, Sarah and Charles. In that case, I might have found their tale more compelling.

As to the Victorian Era affair...Charles is a paleontologist, engaged to be married to a proper young lady, Ernestine, of good family and dowry, when he is bewitched by the fascinating, outcast Sarah and begins a passionate affair. The film does dramatically reveal the contrast between the outwardly respectable, genteel Charles (a proper Victorian gentleman), and his hitherto sexually repressed but actually passionate inner self, as revealed by this illicit love. Sarah, a wronged and tainted woman of ill repute, dubbed by some as 'the French lieutenant's whore', is mysterious and melancholy. My enduring mental picture from this film is of Sarah looking forlornly out to sea, waiting for the return of the French soldier who seduced and abandoned her.

The film has beautiful cinematography, especially the 19th Century scenery. I generally love romances from this period, and I note that another reviewer compared the dramatic seascapes here to the moor landscapes of Wuthering Heights. Yes, sort of a similar mood with the enigmatic, outcast Sarah even shades of the brooding Heathcliff. However, while Wuthering Heights is a film of haunting emotions, this liaison between the respectable Charles and the outcast Sarah had little impact on me.

Apparently, the point of the movie (so I have read) seems to be not so much engaging the viewer emotionally as comparing love affairs from the two eras...the forbidden Victorian passions in sharp contrast to the not very passionate, sort of half bored, casual affair of the modern actors. Yes, the contrast is apparent here, so in this goal, it succeeded. Nevertheless, I would have greatly preferred emotional engagement. I didn't read the novel of the same name, but understand the film within a film approach was meant to replace the narrator's role in the book. If so, this technique may have been clever and artistic, but left me personally cold and simply detached from it all.