Plenty
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Movie Reviews of Plenty
Movie Review: The Effects Of War
Summary: 4 Stars
This film offers a view of the effects of war that is not often explored. It suggests that for some people, the intensity, fear, and hope of wartime living, the subterfuge of fighting, and an adherence to ideals that inform one's actions can create an unusually vivid experience that makes subsequent, peacetime existence seem dull. "Plenty" gives us a portrait of one woman who was involved on the periphery of combat and the devastation of attacks on her native land. Susan Traherne's post-war life is calm in comparison. But placidity is not what she finds satisfying anymore. Having participated in such extreme conditions, she finds peacetime hollow. The rebuilding of society fails to meet the ideals of the fighters she had joined, furthering her sense of alienation. She drifts amidst work and play that seem trivial in light of the intense events that preceded them. The bourgeois and privileged life she eventually joins through marriage seems complacent and hypocritical. She finds a glimmer of what she seeks to recapture in the bohemian, countercultural friend she made at work. Her rambling attempts to decide between a life that is thrillingly gratifying or one safer but paler make for a story that is interesting for audiences interested in character studies or philosophical inquiries.
In addition to an intriguing premise, the execution of the movie is wonderful. The pacing of the narrative, the use of silence and certain sense memories such as sounds, the use of setting, and the acting by the ensemble are outstanding. The flashbacks and sudden shifts in time frame add complexity and poignancy to the tale. The film makes me regret not having seen the original play, which starred the powerhouse actress Kate Nelligan.
Movie Review: Sometimes a Cigar is just a Cigar
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Movie Review: Plenty - as it should be seen
Summary: 4 Stars
Being the huge Meryl Streep fan that I am, I've seen this film over 20 times, but never before in its original widescreen format. So I was pleasantly surprised to realise how much I had missed when I had first watched it in the full-screen format. I think it's going to take me a further 20 viewings to take it all it!Movie Review: Less than meets the eye
Summary: 2 Stars
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."
Movie Review: Don't Waste Your Time
Summary: 2 Stars
Uneven, choppy direction and convoluted plot marr the otherwise superb story and excellent performance of the uncomparable Meryl Streep. Unfortunately, not even the fabulous Ms. Streep can save this -- recommended for devoted fans only, bent on completing their Streep collection.