Metroland
by Philip Saville
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Christian Bale, Elsa Zylberstein, Emily Watson, John Wood, Lee RossDirector: Philip Saville
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-03-28
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Home Video
Movie Reviews of Metroland
Movie Review: I Think I Relate More To This Movie Now Than I Would Have Not Long Ago
Summary: 5 Stars
Based on Julian Barnes popular-under-the-radar novel, 1999's Metroland is an enjoyable, well-acted film that makes great use of its period and setting and finds depth in a plot that could easily have become trite. The scenes set in 1960's Paris were every bit as good as the ones in Greater London of the 1970's, and the questions which torment Christian Bale's character, Chris, are eternal ones that sooner or later confront anyone with even a small degree of insight into himself. Exploring as it does the decision most people eventually make to take the safe path in life versus the road less traveled---in Chris' case the staid day to day existence of working and coming home every evening to his wife and daughter in the London suburbs instead of pursuing the wild life represented by his visiting friend Toni---Metroland truly is a far better movie than it has a right to be and any description of what it is about can only fall short of the experience of seeing a cast with so much talent take on some of the eternal questions that go hand in hand with growing up and discovering who we are. Ultimately this rather quiet trip into one man's life at the point where his past, present and would-be future meet deserves a repeat viewing as there is so much going on within that never gets said in the direct sense and which rewards a viewer perspicacious enough to discern it. Metroland is not a great film but it's certainly a very good one with both Emily Watson and a pre-A-list Christian Bale delivering better performances than you'll see out of Hollywood. It's a film worth owning and worth taking off the shelf and watching now and again.
Summary of Metroland
Metroland, based on Julian Barnes's first novel, is a tale of midlife, middle-class malaise reminiscent of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. It's 1977, and shaggy-haired thirtysomething Chris (Christian Bale) has a lovely wife (Emily Watson) and baby, a solid office job, and a nice house in the London suburb of Metroland. Life is good, until the surprise arrival of old chum Toni (Lee Ross), whom Chris has not seen for 10 years and who was his accomplice in teenage shenanigans and heady visions of a bohemian life abroad. Toni, an inveterate ladies man and rootless poet, disdains his old friend's bourgeois milieu and feels it his duty to revive Chris's passion for women, art, and rock & roll. Meanwhile, Chris can't stop fantasizing about his steamier days as a 20-year-old in Paris with his sultry French girlfriend, and fails to notice that Toni covets his wife and that she has sexual desires of her own. While there's a palpable sexual energy in the movie's proceedings that adds a certain zing to the themes of angst and longing, their eventual epiphanies are disappointingly benign. Lee Ross's swashbuckling Toni and Emily Watson's intelligent, knowing wife carry the movie. --Rebecca WrightDrama DVD Video
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