The Dresser | | Cast : | Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay | | Director : | Peter Yates | | Studio : | Columbia Tristar Hom | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | December 06, 1983 | | DVD Released Date : | April 06, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 22, 2005 | | Summary | Peter Yates ' masterpiece? | Content
 | This sensitive artwork, definitively is by itself a hitherto in this genre. I don't see of any other movie who can match with this in this plot. The intimate world of an actor backstage dealing with all the kaleidoscopic issues around his circumstance.
Albert Finney is one of my top favorite actors. He has a special and fine eye to chose underground but fascinating characters, and in this time this could not be the exception.
If you are a hard fan of the theater world, this film is for you.
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| Rating | | | Date | January 07, 2005 | | Summary | TOM COURTENAY received a BEST ACTOR Oscar nomination | Content
| ...NOT "Supporting Actor" as is incorrectly stated on the DVD box. Reprising the role he created on stage, he holds his own with Finney and is superb (and won a Golden Globe for his efforts). Also watch for the always fine Dame Eileen Atkins as "Madge", the Stage Manager. Highly recommended. |
| Rating | | | Date | March 22, 2004 | | Summary | Brilliant | Content
| Others have said what a splendid film this is. I will add that it is also a rare thing: a movie that is smart and not a bit didactic. Like much good art, The Dresser tells us more about human nature than the whole vapid enterprise of psychiatry. Imagine how dull these characters -- all of humanity -- would be after drugging and doping by shrinks. Will there be anymore Shakespeares after Prozac? Does psychiatry even allow for as much noncomformity and artistic freedom as does communism? No more moral conflicts, no more tragedy. Just serene banality. The antithesis of this film. The antithesis of life. If you are a devotee of what Thomas Szasz has called "The Therapeutic State," you almost certainly with neither understand nor like the film. [...] |
| Rating | | | Date | January 17, 2003 | | Summary | If you like Shakespeare and the English, You'll Love This | Content
| England, 1940, during the blitz: all the young actors are in uniform, hospital, or dead. Albert Finney, playing an aging Shakespearean, carries on as best he can, leading his troupe of women, and men too old or damaged to fight. Actually, he doesn't lead, but rather is daily cajoled into carrying on by his dresser (played by Tom Courtenay). Courtenay is wonderful as the fussy, loyal, oh-so-English man behind the man, maintaining a desperate hold on his good humour even as his life is coming apart in shreds as Finney disintegrates. It is easy to see that Finney was classically trained, and that his booming stage voice must have rung through many a theater. The snatches of Shakespeare that we do see are great fun, as is the byplay between the old man who can do them in his sleep and even the most humble members of the crew, who by now know all the cues. But mainly this is the story of two men, one an artist who is used to taking what he needs from those around him, and the other who gives his life over to that man, and to some idea of carrying on the great work. This is not a happy film, but it is a great one. |
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