84 Charing Cross Road
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Movie Reviews of 84 Charing Cross Road
Movie Review: Love Restrained
Summary: 5 Stars
Name this tale a story of long-distance correspondence that develops into a loving friendship, in the days before email messages, jpg images or the World Wide Web. Or name it a story of love restrained by the virtues of honesty, loyalty and well-considered passion.
Anne Bancroft, playing the role of real-life, New York City author Helene Hanff, does the character true justice; for Hanff was no genteel, flirtatious lady. In fact, many times as I watched this film, I wanted to scream out loud, "Be softer! The man to whom you're writing is a man constrained by polite convention! Better, though, that Bancroft played the woman Hanff was: a sometimes coarse, but always intelligent and warmhearted woman.
I've oftentimes considered Anthony Hopkins to be a Richard Burton wannabe, not in the sense of Burton's explosive display of rage on the screen, but in the way Hopkins sometimes tries too hard to seem the epitome of the "Great British Actor." But over time I've come to respect Hopkins ability to convey the heat that runs through a character who is trapped within himself. In this sense, Hopkins seems perfect for the role of Frank Dole, London bookseller. The viewer understands that Hanff and Dole fall in love with each other -- their mutual taste in books being the the artery of conveyance -- but Frank is a loyal and faithful married man. The tension thus created is delicious.
Add to the actors' superior capabilities the film's post-WWII setting, and the result is one of lushness.
This story stays with me, as do the tears that it elicited.
Movie Review: Friendship with Depth and Love
Summary: 5 Stars
In these days of e-books, and bland books constructed from franchised ideas and formulas, we are presented "84 Charing Cross Road," a story about a relationship begun because of a mutual love of old great books.
Hopkins and Bancroft share a film highlighting both of their genuine personas.
Like Hopkins in "Shadowlands" and "The Remains of the Day," we see him in full glory, as a quiet man of grace and sophistication.
He owns the English bookstore, and Bancroft's character mails him a request for a book. Correspondence and a relationship begins. Contently and confidently married, Hopkins responds as an older brother might, and the two grow to cherish each other despite the distance.
As they care for each other, and slowly, their local friends and family become aware, we see how love transcends the sea. Neither character has an agenda, and this left me feeling a little less cynical about the world around me.
Like so many of today's e-mail- and chatroom-only friendships, they learn to appreciate each other, though knowing only the other as they choose to describe themselves.
This isn't a story about books or bookstores, despite the honest representation of their demeanor and personality. Any booklover knows the search for a book, and the texture of a bookseller's knowledge and connection with his books.
This is a movie about the depth, trust, and love of one unexpected relationship. Book lovers will enjoy the context, and good friends will smile knowingly.
--Brockeim
Movie Review: YOU'VE GOT MAIL, 1940s STYLE.
Summary: 5 Stars
She leads a lonely life in NY. He dwells in a silent marriage in a London suburb. She, a self-taught book connoisseur, is intereseted in out-of-print books advertised by his company (Marks & Company Antiquarian Booksellers, 84 Charing Cross Road) in a US newspaper. So she sends for the books. And thus with a quaint common literary interest begins an epistolary addiction for 30 years that weaves a tapestry of mutual admiration and love. Sounds like a somewhat flimsy strand to base a movie on, but this is anything but a maudlin trans-atlantic love story.
When he writes of the devastated post-war England, she sends him care packages of ham. He sends precious hardbound editions of Boswell, Chesterton and Cardinal Newman. After many years, he dies. She finally goes to London and visits the now-empty bookstore. A sweet pang of unrequited love.
By turns witty and romantic, the letters themselves carry the movie! The times are beautifully captured with the immaculate cinematography (ps: 4 Oscars) and the implied contrast between NY and Britain is quite evident (as it was in the book).
For bibliophiles like myself, the very idea of seeing a sauve Hopkins behind his dusty register is reason enough to swoon about this movie. But the film's stunning achivement is in the absolutely platonic love that the two protagonists evoke. Without ever needing to meet they create a microcosm of their own that infuses something special into their lives.
A wonderful look at how simple love really has to be. A MUST for your collections.
Movie Review: A rare occasion where the movie is as good as the book
Summary: 5 Stars
I wrote a review not long ago about how much I loved the book 84 Charing Cross Road, now I can confess I saw the movie first. I stumbled across the movie one night and was instantly taken away by the superb, and under stated acting of Anne Bancroft as Helene Hanff and Anthony Hopkins as Frank Doel. Although neither actor has even one second of screen time where they are in the same room, you can feel the friendship that devoloped between these two people. The just a touch of a smile that creeps across Hopkins face is a joy to watch as he would get a new letter from Ms. Bancroft's Helene Hanff.
And never (at least in my memory) has Anne Bancroft gotten so totally lost in a role. You no longer see here as Anne Bancroft, actrees, but as Helene Hanff. A frazzled, passionate writer dreaming of living a life filled with books and travelling to London to meet Frank Doel. You can read the disappointment on her face everytime a new obstacle is thrown at her again and again.
The only down note to this entire story is the very end. But as it is a true story, how can you really fault it. However you do find yourself wishing for the happy Hollywood ending for once in your life.
Be you a fan of either actor, a fan of the book, a fan of books in general, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie.
One little side note that just adds to your enjoyment of this film. Anne Bancroft's husband Mel Brooks purchased the film rights to the book one year as a birthday gift after she had told him about how wonderful the book was!
Movie Review: Quiet Beauty
Summary: 5 Stars
This little film, based on the short book of the same name, is an understated masterpiece of a love story. I've watched it many times, and it will always be one of my favorites.
In the late 1940s Helene Hanff was a poor writer living in a shabby New York apartment. She loved English literature but couldn't find copies of her favorite works anywhere. One day she wrote a letter to Marks and Co, a London antiquarian book store on Charing Cross Road, asking for help. One of the shop's employees, Frank Doel, responded, and a twenty year long friendship ensued.
The movie, like the book, is based on the letters Hanff and Doel (as well as other workers at the bookshop and their families) exchanged. The business relationship quickly turned into a friendly, loving one, and the great charm of the movie is how well it depicts the growth of this love. Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins were naturals for the two starring roles, and the rest of the cast includes some stellar names like Judi Dench.
The movie ends with some sadness because Helene and Frank never meet in this life, though that is tempered by scenes showing Helene's first trip to London and Charing Cross Road. Whenever I watch it I come to the final credits with a warm glow of satisfaction.