The Remains of the Day

 Year:  1993

Director:  James Ivory

Screenplay:  Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Harold Pinter (uncredited), based on the novel The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Starring:  Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Peter Vaughan, Hugh Grant, Michael Lonsdale, Tim Pigott-Smith, Lena Headey

Running Time:  134 minutes

Genre:  Period drama

The late 1950s:  Stevens (Hopkins), the butler of the large English stately home Darlington Hall, looks back on twenty years of devoted service to the disgraced Lord Darlington (Fox) and, in particular, reflects on his relationship with housekeeper Miss Kenton (Thompson).

Throughout the 1980s and '90s, Merchant Ivory Productions (producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala) were the undisputed champions of handsomely mounted, serious period dramas.  This faithful adaptation of the celebrated 1989 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro is one of their best known productions.  Unfolding mostly in flashback while Stevens takes a journey by car over several days to visit Miss Kenton, the film mostly takes place in the late 1930s.  Stevens is a man whose entire life is devoted to serving his master, and he is responsible for ensuring that everything in this world runs like clockwork, that everything is immaculate and in it's proper place.  He is also a tragic figure, deeply repressed and unable to open up about his true feelings.  It is never blatantly expressed, but pretty clear that Stevens is in love with Miss Kenton, and she seems to have feelings for him, but their relationship goes no further than her bringing him flowers for his little parlour, at no point in the film fro they even refer to each other by their given names.  Anthony Hopkins gives an immaculate performance as Stevens, in a very difficult role having to express a lot with very little.  He is very straightlaced,  very buttoned down, and expresses a lot with a look, or the flicker of an expression.  Emma Thompson is wonderful as the kindly Miss Kenton, who sometimes finds herself conflicted between her secure employment and her principles, and appears to harbour unspoken feelings for Stevens.  James Fox plays Stevens' employer Lord Darlington, who falls into disgrace due to his Nazi sympathies in the 1930s, although he is portrayed as more misguided and ignorant than being a true fascist.  Christopher Reeve, best known for Superman (1978) and it's three sequels, plays the new American owner of Darlington Hall in the 1950s.  Veteran actor Peter Vaughan, best known for the TV comedy seres Porridge (1974-1977), plays Stevens' father, also a butler at Darlington Hall.  There are also early appearances for Hugh Grant and Game of Thrones (2011-2019) star Lena Headey.  The film is about regret, change, loss and ageing. Late in the film Miss Kenton remarks that "for some people the evening is the best part of the day."  The "remains of the day" can also refer to the years left.  Stevens is left in the evening of his life with little left to show.

Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thomson in The Remains of the Day

Sexy Beast

Year of Release:  2000
Director:  Jonathan Glazer
Screenplay:  Louis Mellis and David Scinto
Starring:  Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane, Amanda Redman, Cavan Kendall, Julianne White,  Álvaro Monje, James Fox
Running Time:  88 minutes
Genre:  Crime

Gal Dove (Winstone) is a retired British criminal who is now living happily in Spain with his wife DeeDee (Redman).  Gal and DeeDee's peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of brutal gangster Don Logan (Kingsley) who wants Gal to take part in a bank robbery in London.  Gal wants no part in it, but Logan refuses to take no for an answer.

This film, which marks the feature debut from director Jonathan Glazer, has a fairly straightforward plot, but is elevated by a razor sharp and witty script with great performances, particularly from Ben Kingsley who is terrifying as the unpredictable sociopath Don Logan.  Ray Winstone provides the film's dramatic heft as the ex-crook who just wants to be left in peace, and Ian McShane is striking as the urbane, dead-eyed crime boss who is arranging the heist.  No one else in the film really gets much room to make an impression.  These three guys get the lion's share of the screen time and dialogue.  Contrasting the gorgeous, sun-drenched Spanish landscapes with the grey, dull, urbanity of London, the film is visually impressive, although the occasional surreal fantasy sequences are distracting and out of place.  Much of the tension in the film is from the verbal sparring between Logan and Gal, the threat of violence rather than the actual act, although the film does culminate in some shocking violence.
While this may not be the best British gangster film ever made, it is certainly above average.

Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast       

Performance

Year of Release:  1970
Director:  Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg
Screenplay:  Donald Cammell
Starring: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, Michele Breton
Running Time:  105 minutes
Genre:  Crime, drama, fantasy   

This film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970.  In London, Chas Devlin (Fox) is a brutal gangland enforcer, who genuinely enjoys his work.  When he disobeys direct orders from his boss and kills a rival for personal, rather than business reasons, Devlin becomes targeted by his own gang.  He decides to hide out in the vast mansion of reclusive rock star, Turner (Jagger), who lives with Pherber (Pallenberg) and Lucy (Breton).  In Turner's surreal, erotic, decadent world of drugs, sex and mysticism, Devlin finds the boundaries of reality and fantasy collapsing.

This is a film that, if you see it once, you will never forget it.  It's very much a film of two halves.  The first half is, in terms of plot, a great if conventional gangster film (in terms of style and technique it is a million miles away from an ordinary gangster film), and in the second it becomes a surreal fantasy of sex, drugs and identity.  It utilises a fragmented, stream of conscience style, using almost every cinematic trick in the book.  James Fox is perfect as Chas Devlin, someone who is, in British criminal slang, a "performer" (a gangster with a special talent for violence and intimidation), he frequently tells people "I know who I am", he lives in a pristine apartment, and is always immaculately groomed and dressed in sharp suits, and is always in control.  Mick Jagger's Turner is another type of performer, a rock star who has retired because, as he says "I lost my demon".  Devlin, a man who needs to be in control, suddenly finds himself, in Turner's house, in a situation where he has no control, where all the old rules just don't apply.  Very much a product of it's time, and full of references to Jorge Luis Borges and William Burroughs, this is still genuinely shocking and disturbing.

Mick Jagger in Performance