The Remains of the Day | | Cast : | Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson | | Director : | James Ivory | | Studio : | Columbia Tri-Star | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | November 05, 1993 | | DVD Released Date : | November 06, 2001 | | Language : | Unknown (Dubbed), English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), Spanish (Dubbed), English (Original Language), Thai (Subtitled), Chinese (Subtitled), Korean (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 07, 2005 | | Summary | Beautiful, touching, but lacking in humour | Content
 | Merchant & Ivory turned Ishiguro's elegant novel into a quiet, stylish movie that is thoroughly gripping if you're even remotely responsive to truly great character acting. The only thing that is conspicuously absent from the film while being one of the main attractions of the novel, is the at times outrageously funny comic element that enlightens the generally melancholy tone of the story. All that's left of it is the butlers cumbersome attempt to acquaint his Lordhip's nephew (Hugh Grant in pre-celeb days) with the facts of life; which, standing on its own as it does in the movie, seems misplaced and fails to be funny at all.
Hopkins and Thompson however work miracles and are the engine of the movie: Stevens, the butler, and Ms. Kenton, the housekeeper, whom they respectively portray, are two quirky characters who develop a touching, but barely acknowledged attachment to each other during their years of service at Darlington Hall. Much of the story takes place in the nineteen thirties, and while the main protagonists are busy keeping the house in order and getting to grips with each other, His Lordship, all naive good intentions, dabbles in politics and gets involved with Chamberlain's foolheaded appeasement policies and, by extension, with the nazis. Stevens sees it all happening before his eyes, but reserves judgment: he is there "to serve Lord Darlington, not to agree or disagree". Instead, he slavisly allows himself to be used in a callous parlour game of several of his masters friends, who flaunt his lack of political opinion as proof that democracy is madness. His sense of duty completely usurps his sense of personal responsibility, and eventually even causes this most genteel of men to behave in ways that are unfeeling, if not thoroughly reprehensible. Ms. Kenton is less placid, but has other reasons not to revolt. Loneliness, a disability to communicate, and emotional repression are the core themes of the movie, so don't expect any spectacular superficial drama. The pace is slow, arguably too slow at times. However, while the souls of butler and housekeeper are patiently laid bare, the viewer is regaled with some truly marvellous recreations of the Indian summer of English country house ife - busy downstairs activity, lawn meet and lavish dinner parties included. The locations are excellent, though interior and exterior scenes were shot at different places and it is hard not to notice that the supposed rooms of Darlington hall are a bit too sizeable, sumptuous and numerous to actually fit within the modest shell of Dyrham Park, that stands in for its outside. Nonetheless, a great film that can be enjoyed on several levels. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 03, 2005 | | Summary | Star-Crossed Lives in a British Manor | Content
| "Remains of the Day" is perhaps the quintessential Merchant-Ivory production. Their films are models of British gentility - period pictures with handsome actors wearing tuxedoes in elaborate mansions. With Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson reunited (after the fine "Howard's End") and a fine supporting cast including James Fox, Hugh Grant and Christopher Reeve, "Remains of the Day" SHOULD be something special, and it is.
Hopkins plays Stevens, the head Butler of Darlington Manor, and a household so large that it employs a small army of cooks, footmen, under butlers and other servants. Early in the film he hires Thompson's Miss Kenton as head housekeeper. Stevens and Miss Kenton are consummate professionals - always on time, always reliable, and they lead the house staff keeping Darlington Manor looking like a museum.
But Darlington Manor is not a museum. It is the home of Lord Darlington, an English gentleman who saw German friends suffer and lose their shirt because of harsh penalties imposed on Germany after the First World War. Lord Darlington is determined as a man of honor to see that Germany gets a fair shake in rebuilding their country, even as the specter of Hitler grows and threatens the remainder of Europe.
The film elegantly portrays the parallel tragedies of Lord Darlington and his blindly loyal butler. In retrospect it is easy to see how flawed Lord Darlington was to support Germany without question. It is more difficult to fully appreciate Stevens' tragedies - first in loyally supporting Lord Darlington while he misguidedly directed England towards German acceptance, and secondly in placing all of his private life behind his devotion to duty.
Stevens and Miss Kenton meet and maneuver and pirouette through Darlington Manor, each becoming more attracted to the other in their own way. But while Miss Kenton is a kind-hearted woman eager to love and be loved, Stevens has let his professional ability to "not get involved" spill over to his personal life. Despite his wishes and his repressed yet obvious affection for Miss Kenton, he maintains a respectful distance, resulting in his cruelest tragedy of all - breaking Miss Kenton's heart and, due to his inaction, his own.
"Remains of the Day" is a movie set before and after World War II, but it is not a "War" picture. It is a movie to be appreciated by those who would be as interested in the back-door meetings of diplomats and ambassadors as in the soldier in the trenches. Perhaps in that way it would be a perfect compliment to a film such as "Saving Private Ryan".
For fans of Sir Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson or Merchant-Ivory films, I can't recommend it more highly.
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| Rating | | | Date | April 11, 2005 | | Summary | Judge This Outstanding Movie For Yourself! | Content
| This is one of my absolute favorite movies. I've viewed it probably at least 10 times, a rarity for me. My advice to anyone who has not seen it, is to judge this movie for yourself. Do not allow yourself to be swayed by anything written or said about this movie--especially not anything written or said by those who made it.
This movie is quite the paradox...in the sense it is a highly intelligent well-made movie...yet, from the get-go, those associated with it or reviewed it all seemed to see it in the same flawed, not to mention stereotypic way. Anthony Hopkin's butler character Stevens is "the perfect English butler--an ideal carried by him to fanatical lengths"...he is "suppressed"...he made the horrid mistake of not marrying Miss Kenton, the housekeeper...if ONLY he had married Miss Kenton, they would have lived happily ever after!!!!! :)
Seriously, it is as if no one ever considered, or even is ALLOWED to consider, that if Stevens had married Miss Kenton, he might have stayed the same way he was after the marriage that he was before the marriage; at which time, the little things that irked her about Mr. Stevens before they married, might have become big things that irked her; and she might have become a bitter woman, regretted marrying him, and might have been on her way to visit Mr. Benn, the man who asked her to marry him first. Was it not actually Emma Thompson's character, Miss Kenton, who actually made the big mistake of marrying someone she did not love? What if instead of labeling Stevens "suppressed", he was labeled a "workaholic"? Would everyone then assume they would have lived happily ever after if they had married? Probably not.
From the first time I saw the movie, I personally felt Stevens was more steroetyped than suppressed. My beliefs of that were enforced when I got the press kit, and read the following: "None of the filmmakers had any experience with the way a great English country house is run, or the minutiae of a butler's life. Ishiguro himself is the first to admit this, and had to learn about it in the course of writing his novel." Then there was the following from the DVD insertion: "None of us knew anything at all about what a butler does, including Ishiguro, who told Ruth Prawer Jhabvala when they'd met that he'd gotten it all out of a book, or had simply made it up".
One can probably rightfully question that novelist Ishiguro ever actually learned it, and can probably easily believe he "simply made it up". Listening to him discuss the movie in the DVD special feature leaves one wondering if he actually had any real interest--or more importantly, any real RESPECT--for his main character Stevens, the butler. He seems unable to focus on much of anything but the political situation, and Steven's failure to grasp the horror of Nazism. My, you think if you're running a household with an "army" of servants, you might not have the time to think much about politics? Really, it's laugable to listen to someone such as Ishiguro, who
has the time and money to think, to write, to reflect--in hindsight, no less--to judge a working class man who did not have such luxuries! What he is doing is no different than what the pompous friend of Lord Darlington's did when he started questioning Steven's about his political beliefs. The jerk friend was trying to show Stevens, as a servant and common man, could not possibly grasp political issues. He was claiming Stevens was not intelligent enough to do so. What Ishiguro, as well as others involved in the movie, are claiming is that Stevens was not "man enough" to do so. What was Stevens suppose to do--at the last meal of the conference, take a platter of food and dump it over the Baroness' blonde head?! Does the word "sacked" mean anything to Ishiguro? Does the word "starvation"? Obviously not. Obviously, the only "manly" and "intelligent" thing a servant in that time period could do, according to the movie, is leave service, and no longer be a servant. Gee, but guess what? Without the servants, there would have been no such households like Darlington Hall...and there could have been no movie like "Remains of the Day", unless it was a "fantasy" movie!
Also laughable was the way you hardly ever see Stevens controlling the staff...apparently, the filmakers were doing so. The only way Stevens seemed to control the staff was to try to make sure he didn't hire someone unfit...and to make self-righteous comments about servants running off to marry each other. Ishiguro might have based his book on a butler's diary, but it was obviously one of those diaries that didn't disclose much about the way the person actually lived. One imagined it just contained some deep, lofty thoughts about his life...which sounded ridiculous when they were spoken verbatim in the film...which one imagines was the basis for that discussion between him and Mr. Benns in the butler's pantry. Yes, that's probably how butlers talked to each other in private!
Anthony Hopkins deserves tremendous credit for pulling off the character of Stevens with all the steretypes he was handed. One can only think it would have been an even better performance, however, if there weren't so many preconceived ideas associated with his character. He also was the one, according to the press kit, who insisted a professional butler be brought in to show the actual way things would have been done in such a household. His Stevens is not broken at the end, not destroyed by regrets. He is simply a man who made his choices in life, may have had regrets like most people do, and then carried on with his life and job. Emma Thompson's Miss Kenton fortunately escaped all the stereotypes dumped on Stevens, and she gave her usual exceptional performance. Hugh Grant also was exceptional, and added a bit of much appreciated humor to the movie.
Then, there was James Fox's character of Lord Darlington...once again, judge for yourself how you feel about this character...others will tell you all sorts of ways to view him and judge him. I personally thought his character was the TRUE outstanding one in the movie. One wonders if a "real" Lord Darlington would have been so sweet and "naive", especially after serving in World War I...but Fox pulls it off. It's a shame the movie didn't focus a bit more on him, and less on the relationship between Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton. I'll always see "Remains of the Day" more as a James Fox movie, than an Anthony Hopkins/Emma Thompson one.
Final word about how to view this movie...if you are not a big fan of widescreen and know a lot about it, I would not waste my money on the DVD. View the movie on VHS. I have a normal 20 inch TV, and the DVD version of this movie is not watchable on my TV. The black lines on the top and the bottom of the screen are so big, it's like watching the VHS version of the movie, with at least a third of the picture blacked out! It totally destroys the movie, in my opinion. But once again, you need to be the judge of that. Just like you need to be the one and only judge of this outstanding British movie.
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| Rating | | | Date | January 16, 2005 | | Summary | Screen acting at its finest | Content
| Merchant-Ivory films bore me to tears, but this is quite the exception. Hopkins delivers perfection as a repressed butler and is amazing on so many levels. I marveled at the brilliance of the cast and the story, and its place in a historical context. Filmed in a gorgeous, widescreen format, I was really impressed with the locations selected - they all work magnificently. And the music! Very memorable. Notable for this dvd release is the commentary track, which Emma Thompson shines on. |
| Rating | | | Date | September 04, 2004 | | Summary | Adapted from Ishiguro, brilliantly played- | Content
| The film would have fallen flat on its face were it not for a command performance from Hopkins. This is not to say that Thompson, James Fox, Hugh Grant, et al aren't fantastic as well; they light up the screen. Michael Lonsdale also has a smart little part as the French delegate Dupont D'Ivry.
The film is more or less about the "repressed" Stevens (Hopkins), the proper-ist of proper English butlers, reminiscing about the prime of his career serving Nazi-sympathizing Lord Darlington (James Fox) during the years surrounding World War II. This being said, there are slightly political moments that color some of his memories, but they are not the focus, nor do they detract.
One day in the manor, a young housekeeper shows up called Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson). She has excellent references, plenty of experience, try not to fall in love with one of the staff-men, when can you start? The problem becomes Stevens; he begins to fall in love with her.
Here is where the film begins to take liberties with the book, but the sublimity with which it's accomplished is truly remarkable. Here is a film adaptation achieving the same kind of moods and complexity as the book. With Stevens falling in love with Kenton, and vice-versa, the two are bound by their facade of service to remain absolutely mum about the whole thing, even in the quiet moments they have outside the world of their duties. The audience begins to realize that they've become so caught up with their jobs that it's begun to master their identity, to the point where their desire for one another takes a back seat to the wish to not break any of the house rules.
If the book is about the nature of reminiscing and the consciousness of a narrator; the film is about the desire for self-satisfaction versus the need for self-transcendence. By giving in to the love Stevens and Kenton feel for one another, they would be rising above their lonely identities so closely wrapped up with Darlington Hall. By fighting the desire for one another, they satisfy the professional and personal sense of achievement, and the hollow sort of transcendence it provides.
Too many reviewers boiled it down to, "It's a movie about doing what you really want to do," or "it's a "follow-your-heart" tale." Few see it in terms of Stevens not ever being able to give in to his love for Miss Kenton. Such is the nature of his personality and experience, that the choice of giving in has been, no pun intended, given up. Basically: could Stevens choose between the house and housekeeper? No, the house wins everytime.
Hopkins needed to win an Oscar for this, instead Tom Hanks won in 93 for his work in Philadelphia. Far be it from me to sunder the work of Mr. Hanks, but Sir Hopkins put on one of the finest acting performances I think anyone has put to celluloid, and the Academy passed it up. File this under more evidence for the fact that the Academy loves to make political statements with its decision on who to give Oscars, and its preference for American actors. |
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