HollywoodNews.com: Lionsgate® (Nyse: Lgf), the leading next generation studio and Exclusive Media Group’s (Exclusive) Newmarket Films, the highly regarded Los Angeles based film production and distribution company, have announced that they have entered into a home entertainment distribution deal including DVD, Blu-ray, digital delivery, TV and Video On Demand (VOD). Under the terms of the arrangement, Lionsgate will become the exclusive Home Entertainment distributor for all Newmarket Films theatrical releases in the United States in addition to a large majority of Newmarket’s extensive library of high profile releases including Christopher Nolan’s groundbreaking psychological thriller, Memento.
The first Home Entertainment release under the deal will be the recently released Jon Amiel’s Creation, about the life of Charles Darwin, starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, which will be released on DVD, VOD and available for digital download on June 29th . The deal also includes the upcoming Newmarket...
The first Home Entertainment release under the deal will be the recently released Jon Amiel’s Creation, about the life of Charles Darwin, starring Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, which will be released on DVD, VOD and available for digital download on June 29th . The deal also includes the upcoming Newmarket...
- 5/11/2010
- by HollywoodNews.com
- Hollywoodnews.com
Now here's something unusual -- a remake of a classic slasher movie that actually tones down the violence of the original rather than bringing it more in line with today's torture porn standards.
But while playing to a PG-13 rating can have its virtues, Prom Night, a reworking of the 1980 original, needed to substitute the excised graphic stuff with some genuine jolts and creepy scares, along the lines of John Carpenter's first Halloween.
Alas, the awfully bland 2008 version, serving as the feature directorial debut of Nelson McCormick (CSI, Prison Break) and written by J.S. Cardone (The Covenant), offers no such thrills, proving to be about as spine-tingling as an algebra exam.
Obviously targeting a young female demographic, the benign Screen Gems release should handily scare off the young male audience that usually makes or breaks a horror film.
Where the very first Prom Night, itself a shameless Carrie knockoff, presented a mystery killer with a method to his madness -- he was avenging the death of a little girl at the hands of the group of teens he was terrorizing -- not to mention a disco-dancing Jamie Lee Curtis back in her scream queen days, the "reimagined" edition dispenses with ulterior motives.
Here we have senior student Donna Keppel ("Hairspray's" Brittany Snow), who lost her entire family three years earlier at the blood-stained hands of Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech) an obsessed teacher who wanted her all to himself.
Now living with her aunt and uncle, Donna is trying not to let her tragic past ruin Prom Night, but, Mr. Fenton has other ideas, having just escaped from his maximum security asylum.
After significantly toning down the usual shock/camp value, Prom Night cries out for the sort of lurking dread and prevailing off-kilter mood that are hallmarks of the more effective psychological thrillers.
There's the obligatory body count, but minus anything resembling originality or resourcefulness, sometimes it's hard to tell if the remarkably demure marks left by the resident psychopath are from fatal stabbings or smudged lip gloss.
Given that the title event has to be one of the dullest prom nights ever recorded on film, chances are good that some of Fenton's presumed victims actually died of boredom.
PROM NIGHT
Screen Gems
Screen Gems presents an Original Film/Newmarket Films production in association with Alliance Films
Credits: Director: Nelson McCormick
Writer: J.S. Cardone
Producers: Neal H. Moritz, Toby Jaffe
Executive producers: Glenn S. Gainor, Marc Forby, J.S. Cardone, Bruce Mellon, William Tyrer, Chris J. Ball
Director of photography: Checco Varese
Production designer: Jon Gary Steele
Music: Paul Haslinger
Editor: Jason Ballantine
Cast:
Donna Keppel: Brittany Snow
Bobby: Scott Porter
Claire: Jessica Stroup
Lisa Hines: Dana Davis
Ronnie Heflin: Collins Pennie
Richard Fenton: Johnathon Schaech
Detective Winn: Idris Elba
Running time -- 85 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
But while playing to a PG-13 rating can have its virtues, Prom Night, a reworking of the 1980 original, needed to substitute the excised graphic stuff with some genuine jolts and creepy scares, along the lines of John Carpenter's first Halloween.
Alas, the awfully bland 2008 version, serving as the feature directorial debut of Nelson McCormick (CSI, Prison Break) and written by J.S. Cardone (The Covenant), offers no such thrills, proving to be about as spine-tingling as an algebra exam.
Obviously targeting a young female demographic, the benign Screen Gems release should handily scare off the young male audience that usually makes or breaks a horror film.
Where the very first Prom Night, itself a shameless Carrie knockoff, presented a mystery killer with a method to his madness -- he was avenging the death of a little girl at the hands of the group of teens he was terrorizing -- not to mention a disco-dancing Jamie Lee Curtis back in her scream queen days, the "reimagined" edition dispenses with ulterior motives.
Here we have senior student Donna Keppel ("Hairspray's" Brittany Snow), who lost her entire family three years earlier at the blood-stained hands of Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech) an obsessed teacher who wanted her all to himself.
Now living with her aunt and uncle, Donna is trying not to let her tragic past ruin Prom Night, but, Mr. Fenton has other ideas, having just escaped from his maximum security asylum.
After significantly toning down the usual shock/camp value, Prom Night cries out for the sort of lurking dread and prevailing off-kilter mood that are hallmarks of the more effective psychological thrillers.
There's the obligatory body count, but minus anything resembling originality or resourcefulness, sometimes it's hard to tell if the remarkably demure marks left by the resident psychopath are from fatal stabbings or smudged lip gloss.
Given that the title event has to be one of the dullest prom nights ever recorded on film, chances are good that some of Fenton's presumed victims actually died of boredom.
PROM NIGHT
Screen Gems
Screen Gems presents an Original Film/Newmarket Films production in association with Alliance Films
Credits: Director: Nelson McCormick
Writer: J.S. Cardone
Producers: Neal H. Moritz, Toby Jaffe
Executive producers: Glenn S. Gainor, Marc Forby, J.S. Cardone, Bruce Mellon, William Tyrer, Chris J. Ball
Director of photography: Checco Varese
Production designer: Jon Gary Steele
Music: Paul Haslinger
Editor: Jason Ballantine
Cast:
Donna Keppel: Brittany Snow
Bobby: Scott Porter
Claire: Jessica Stroup
Lisa Hines: Dana Davis
Ronnie Heflin: Collins Pennie
Richard Fenton: Johnathon Schaech
Detective Winn: Idris Elba
Running time -- 85 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 4/14/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
- While at Cannes, there was a sobering missing child awareness campaign with celebrity folk involved. It’s perhaps the worst thing that can occur to any parent – some might say that death of a child is less painful. Variety reports that Newmarket Films has acquired the film rights to Michelle Richmond's novel and tapped Semi Chellas to adapt. This could fit into guilt trap and dramatic mold of A Map of the World.The Year of Fog is based on the San Francisco-set novel that follows a young woman whose fiance's child vanishes when she momentarily looks away to take a photograph. The couple then struggles through blame, loss and grief while constructing their own ideas about the girl's fate. Newmarket will produce and fully finance the bigscreen project. P. Jennifer Dana and Andrew Lauren of Andrew Lauren Prods. and Newmarket's Aaron Ryder will serve as producers, with
- 7/2/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
Christopher Nolan's movies zero in on men in the throes of obsession, characters who desperately search for that one thing that will make their existence less compromised. From the great backward-moving thriller Memento to the sun-blinded film noir Insomnia and the philosophical epic Batman Begins, Nolan has arrived quite naturally at The Prestige, a movie totally dominated by obsession.
Prestige revolves around a rivalry between two magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) in turn-of-the-20th century London. Each is obsessed with the other's trade secrets and boxoffice success. Obsession is like a narcotic: The more they partake, the more they crave. It's a hot subject, but for the first time, Nolan's approach might be too cool.
Audiences might enjoy this cinematic sleight of hand, but the key characters are such single-minded, calculating individuals that the real magic would be to find any heart in this tale. So the question is whether audiences find any emotional hook amid all this cleverness. If they do, there is nary a dull moment thanks to all the intrigue, eye-grabbing production values and behind-the-scenes look at magic tricks. That's a big "if," though, as the only likable character is played by Michael Caine as an ingeneur, a fellow who designs the illusions.
Nolan's screenplay, which he wrote with his brother Jonathan, derives from a novel by Christopher Priest. The movie begins in a rush, near the end of the story, but quickly backtracks to the point where the rivalry commences. Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Bale) are colleagues in the employ of an aging magician trotting out an aging act that includes Robert's lovely wife, Julia (Piper Perabo). When she tragically dies during the act, Robert, not without reason, blames Alfred.
One of the film's major flaws is to waffle on this point: Alfred claims he doesn't remember what kind of a knot he tied around Julia' wrists before her immersion into water. How can this be?
Anyway, the rivalry is on as the men build illustrious careers while they sabotage each other's stage performances and plant spies in each other's camps. Each develops a signature trick, but Alfred's emerges as Top Dog with his Transported Man, in which he is instantly transported from one part of the stage to another. Robert becomes completely obsessed with learning how to do this trick. His ingeneur Cutter (Caine) insists he knows how it's done -- with a double. He even replicates the trick for Robert with the help of a drunk actor who is Robert's look-alike. This does nothing to appease Robert's obsession.
Robert surreptitiously attains Alfred's workbook/diary, where many secrets may exist. Meanwhile, he takes off for Colorado Springs, where the eccentric Serbian scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla (David Bowie, if you please) -- the story's one actual historical figure -- powers the entire city with electricity from his lab. Believing that Tesla built Alfred's Transporter machine, Robert hopes the wizard can build a similar contraption for him.
Just as a conjurer saws a lady in half, the movie keeps dividing its characters and relationships. Once buddies, Robert and Alfred are now rivals. Each has a wife. Robert's dies, but Alfred's, Sarah (Rebecca Hall), flourishes. Yet Sarah sees in her husband a divided soul: One days he loves her; another day he does not.
Olivia (Scarlett Johansson) becomes Robert's assistant and eventually his lover. Only Robert sends her to Alfred, ostensibly to steal his secrets, but she sells him out and becomes Alfred's lover. There are more instances of such divisions, but to reveal more would reveal the movie's twin secrets -- one of which audiences will probably guess and the other they probably won't.
So tangled are the tricks and plot lines that the story's characters are little more than sketches. Remove their obsessions, and the two magicians have little personality. The women suffer from their men's distractions but have, seemingly, little life of their own. Indeed you don't need a star such as Johansson to play Olivia, so slim is her role.
Bowie is quite wonderful as Tesla -- mysterious, exotic yet somehow the film's most reasonable man -- while Andy Serkis as his assistant brings sly comedy to an otherwise morbidly serious affair.
Production values are aces with dynamic, gritty sets; lighting that makes the movie take place in a perpetual twilight; and a lively, nerve-jangling score.
THE PRESTIGE
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures present
a Newmarket Film and Syncopy production
Credits:
Director: Christopher Nolan
Screenwriters: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Based on the novel by: Christopher Priest
Producers: Emma Thomas, Aaron Ryder, Christopher Nolan
Executive producers: Charles J.D. Schlissel, Chris J. Ball, William Tyrer, Valerie Dean
Director of photography: Wally Pfister
Production designer: Nathan Crowley
Music: David Julyan
Costume designer: Joan Bergin
Editor: Lee Smith
Cast:
Robert Angier: Hugh Jackman
Alfred Borden: Christian Bale
Cutter: Michael Caine
Julia: Piper Perabo
Sarah: Rebecca Hall
Olivia: Scarlett Johansson
Mr. Alley: Andy Serkis
Nikola Tesla: David Bowie
Running time -- 131 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
Prestige revolves around a rivalry between two magicians (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) in turn-of-the-20th century London. Each is obsessed with the other's trade secrets and boxoffice success. Obsession is like a narcotic: The more they partake, the more they crave. It's a hot subject, but for the first time, Nolan's approach might be too cool.
Audiences might enjoy this cinematic sleight of hand, but the key characters are such single-minded, calculating individuals that the real magic would be to find any heart in this tale. So the question is whether audiences find any emotional hook amid all this cleverness. If they do, there is nary a dull moment thanks to all the intrigue, eye-grabbing production values and behind-the-scenes look at magic tricks. That's a big "if," though, as the only likable character is played by Michael Caine as an ingeneur, a fellow who designs the illusions.
Nolan's screenplay, which he wrote with his brother Jonathan, derives from a novel by Christopher Priest. The movie begins in a rush, near the end of the story, but quickly backtracks to the point where the rivalry commences. Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Bale) are colleagues in the employ of an aging magician trotting out an aging act that includes Robert's lovely wife, Julia (Piper Perabo). When she tragically dies during the act, Robert, not without reason, blames Alfred.
One of the film's major flaws is to waffle on this point: Alfred claims he doesn't remember what kind of a knot he tied around Julia' wrists before her immersion into water. How can this be?
Anyway, the rivalry is on as the men build illustrious careers while they sabotage each other's stage performances and plant spies in each other's camps. Each develops a signature trick, but Alfred's emerges as Top Dog with his Transported Man, in which he is instantly transported from one part of the stage to another. Robert becomes completely obsessed with learning how to do this trick. His ingeneur Cutter (Caine) insists he knows how it's done -- with a double. He even replicates the trick for Robert with the help of a drunk actor who is Robert's look-alike. This does nothing to appease Robert's obsession.
Robert surreptitiously attains Alfred's workbook/diary, where many secrets may exist. Meanwhile, he takes off for Colorado Springs, where the eccentric Serbian scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla (David Bowie, if you please) -- the story's one actual historical figure -- powers the entire city with electricity from his lab. Believing that Tesla built Alfred's Transporter machine, Robert hopes the wizard can build a similar contraption for him.
Just as a conjurer saws a lady in half, the movie keeps dividing its characters and relationships. Once buddies, Robert and Alfred are now rivals. Each has a wife. Robert's dies, but Alfred's, Sarah (Rebecca Hall), flourishes. Yet Sarah sees in her husband a divided soul: One days he loves her; another day he does not.
Olivia (Scarlett Johansson) becomes Robert's assistant and eventually his lover. Only Robert sends her to Alfred, ostensibly to steal his secrets, but she sells him out and becomes Alfred's lover. There are more instances of such divisions, but to reveal more would reveal the movie's twin secrets -- one of which audiences will probably guess and the other they probably won't.
So tangled are the tricks and plot lines that the story's characters are little more than sketches. Remove their obsessions, and the two magicians have little personality. The women suffer from their men's distractions but have, seemingly, little life of their own. Indeed you don't need a star such as Johansson to play Olivia, so slim is her role.
Bowie is quite wonderful as Tesla -- mysterious, exotic yet somehow the film's most reasonable man -- while Andy Serkis as his assistant brings sly comedy to an otherwise morbidly serious affair.
Production values are aces with dynamic, gritty sets; lighting that makes the movie take place in a perpetual twilight; and a lively, nerve-jangling score.
THE PRESTIGE
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures present
a Newmarket Film and Syncopy production
Credits:
Director: Christopher Nolan
Screenwriters: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Based on the novel by: Christopher Priest
Producers: Emma Thomas, Aaron Ryder, Christopher Nolan
Executive producers: Charles J.D. Schlissel, Chris J. Ball, William Tyrer, Valerie Dean
Director of photography: Wally Pfister
Production designer: Nathan Crowley
Music: David Julyan
Costume designer: Joan Bergin
Editor: Lee Smith
Cast:
Robert Angier: Hugh Jackman
Alfred Borden: Christian Bale
Cutter: Michael Caine
Julia: Piper Perabo
Sarah: Rebecca Hall
Olivia: Scarlett Johansson
Mr. Alley: Andy Serkis
Nikola Tesla: David Bowie
Running time -- 131 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13...
- 10/16/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
In a move that realigns the independent film arena, New Line Cinema and HBO have acquired distributor Newmarket Films, which will become the basis of a new indie distribution company headed by Newmarket president Bob Berney. The new company will distribute films produced by New Line and HBO, both individually and together, as well as handle acquisitions. As part of the venture, HBO Films and New Line -- both owned by Time Warner -- will jointly fund a new slate of modestly budgeted movies. The price that New Line and HBO are paying to acquire Berney's Newmarket operation -- which was set up in 2002 when Berney entered into a partnership with the Newmarket Entertainment Group's William Tyrer and Chris Ball -- was not disclosed.
- 3/24/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
NEW YORK -- Aaron Ryder's Raygun Prods. is set to produce a big-screen adaptation of author Andre Dubus III's Bluesman for indie distributor Newmarket Films. The project marks the first feature Raygun will create for parent Newmarket, the distributor behind such recent rollouts as The Passion of the Christ and Monster. Newmarket principles William Tyrer and Chris Ball launched Raygun with Ryder late last year to feed Newmarket's pipeline while allowing Ryder to pursue producing opportunities outside the company fold.
David Lynch, Sam Raimi, Wes Craven, heck, even Gregg Araki is mellowing with age. Alas, he's still not winning over many critics, though his newest, most technically polished film "Splendor" lives up to its premise of a steamy bisexual screwball comedy.
Opening today in New York and next week in Los Angeles, the Samuel Goldwyn Films release will have a less-than-splendid theatrical run for what could have been the maverick filmmaker's commercial breakthrough. If bigger-name performers were involved, "Splendor" might have had a chance to break out of the pack given its two-guys-and-a-girl-in-love dynamics and breezy, upbeat agenda.
"Splendor" comes on the heels of writer-director Araki's "Teen Apocalypse Trilogy" -- "Totally F***ed Up," "The Doom Generation" and "Nowhere" -- and has a slightly new flavor of sexual politics to go along with the relatively mature protagonists, who have made it to their early 20s and still know how to have a good time.
Indeed, impulsive flirting and sex with two different men leads nice-girl Veronica (Kathleen Robertson) into the unknown territory of a threesome in which the about-to-get-lucky actress is spoiled in all ways. Enjoying the situation and wanting everyone to be friendly, she brings together Abel (Johnathon Schaech) and Zed (Matt Keeslar), only to dump them and get engaged to a third beau.
Not without a few rounds of awkwardness and tension -- with Veronica imagining black-and-white boxing bouts between the two, with herself as referee -- all three soon share the same bed. Of course, for Araki, threesomes are nothing new and neither is gay-themed romance. But with a prudish yet sensual visual approach, this time he positions Veronica as the film's heart and soul.
Employing such shopworn techniques as the lead speaking directly to the camera, extensive voice-overs and music-inspired montages, Araki entrusts the more delicate shadings of the movie to the principal performers. Led by Nicole Kidman-like Robertson, the cast supplies the chemistry that provides for several enjoyable stretches and endearing characterizations overall. But the filmmaker's detractors will also find much to pick away at, most noticeably Araki's drastically toned-down attitude toward the establishment, big business and suburbia.
Even when TV director Ernest (Eric Mabius) -- described by Veronica as The Hollywood Reporter-meets-Psychology Today -- enters the scenario, Araki holds back from the raucous satire and grostequerie found in his past two films. Instead, he has Veronica get pregnant, which predictably ups the stakes emotionally and logistically. Kelly MacDonald is suitably screechy and stylishly decadent as Veronica's lesbian friend, whose tiny costumed dog steals the show in a few shots.
A cute dog in a Gregg Araki movie? A G-rated Lynch film? This could turn into a frightening trend. On the other hand, Araki once again does enough things right, starting with the writing and the casting, to make entertaining fluff that matches well with his much angrier and more abrasively challenging works.
SPLENDOR
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Summit Entertainment and Newmarket Capital Group present
a Desperate Pictures/Dragon Pictures production
Writer-director: Gregg Araki
Producers: Gregg Araki, Damian Jones, Graham Broadbent
Executive producers: Heidi Lester, William Tyrer, Chris Ball
Director of photography: Jim Fealy
Production designer: Patti Podesta
Editor: Gregg Araki
Costume designer: Susanna Puisto
Music: Daniel Licht
Casting: Mary and Karen Margiotta
Color/stereo
Cast:
Veronica: Kathleen Robertson
Abel: Johnathon Schaech
Zed: Matt Keeslar
Ernest: Eric Mabius
Mike: Kelly MacDonald
Running time -- 92 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
Opening today in New York and next week in Los Angeles, the Samuel Goldwyn Films release will have a less-than-splendid theatrical run for what could have been the maverick filmmaker's commercial breakthrough. If bigger-name performers were involved, "Splendor" might have had a chance to break out of the pack given its two-guys-and-a-girl-in-love dynamics and breezy, upbeat agenda.
"Splendor" comes on the heels of writer-director Araki's "Teen Apocalypse Trilogy" -- "Totally F***ed Up," "The Doom Generation" and "Nowhere" -- and has a slightly new flavor of sexual politics to go along with the relatively mature protagonists, who have made it to their early 20s and still know how to have a good time.
Indeed, impulsive flirting and sex with two different men leads nice-girl Veronica (Kathleen Robertson) into the unknown territory of a threesome in which the about-to-get-lucky actress is spoiled in all ways. Enjoying the situation and wanting everyone to be friendly, she brings together Abel (Johnathon Schaech) and Zed (Matt Keeslar), only to dump them and get engaged to a third beau.
Not without a few rounds of awkwardness and tension -- with Veronica imagining black-and-white boxing bouts between the two, with herself as referee -- all three soon share the same bed. Of course, for Araki, threesomes are nothing new and neither is gay-themed romance. But with a prudish yet sensual visual approach, this time he positions Veronica as the film's heart and soul.
Employing such shopworn techniques as the lead speaking directly to the camera, extensive voice-overs and music-inspired montages, Araki entrusts the more delicate shadings of the movie to the principal performers. Led by Nicole Kidman-like Robertson, the cast supplies the chemistry that provides for several enjoyable stretches and endearing characterizations overall. But the filmmaker's detractors will also find much to pick away at, most noticeably Araki's drastically toned-down attitude toward the establishment, big business and suburbia.
Even when TV director Ernest (Eric Mabius) -- described by Veronica as The Hollywood Reporter-meets-Psychology Today -- enters the scenario, Araki holds back from the raucous satire and grostequerie found in his past two films. Instead, he has Veronica get pregnant, which predictably ups the stakes emotionally and logistically. Kelly MacDonald is suitably screechy and stylishly decadent as Veronica's lesbian friend, whose tiny costumed dog steals the show in a few shots.
A cute dog in a Gregg Araki movie? A G-rated Lynch film? This could turn into a frightening trend. On the other hand, Araki once again does enough things right, starting with the writing and the casting, to make entertaining fluff that matches well with his much angrier and more abrasively challenging works.
SPLENDOR
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Summit Entertainment and Newmarket Capital Group present
a Desperate Pictures/Dragon Pictures production
Writer-director: Gregg Araki
Producers: Gregg Araki, Damian Jones, Graham Broadbent
Executive producers: Heidi Lester, William Tyrer, Chris Ball
Director of photography: Jim Fealy
Production designer: Patti Podesta
Editor: Gregg Araki
Costume designer: Susanna Puisto
Music: Daniel Licht
Casting: Mary and Karen Margiotta
Color/stereo
Cast:
Veronica: Kathleen Robertson
Abel: Johnathon Schaech
Zed: Matt Keeslar
Ernest: Eric Mabius
Mike: Kelly MacDonald
Running time -- 92 minutes
MPAA rating: R...
- 9/17/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
She's the type of woman who now measures out her life "with serving spoons." That's the sterling but dull existence that has come to characterize the days of Clarissa Dalloway, an elegant woman whose high-Tory life has become barren and lifeless.
With a wonderfully spare and radiant lead performance from Vanessa Redgrave, this film was a crowd-pleaser at the recent Toronto International Film Festival and should do splendidly on the art house circuit.
The well-tended wife of a Parliament member, Clarissa (Redgrave) has reached a peak in life where she has weathered all challenges and risen to the role for which she has scrupulously positioned herself for all her life. She is respectable and revered, but this station leaves her empty and unfulfilled.
With a stiff upper lip, holding high an antiseptic smile, she goes about her life, which is unfortunately reduced to organizing parties and get-togethers for, well, the same old crowd. Not surprisingly, the English upper crust during the 1920s is not that different from the current crop of top hats -- dowdy, conflicted, chatty and, of course, out-and-out batty.
An intelligent and insightful distillation of a Virginia Woolf novel, "Mrs. Dalloway" is a precise, pointillistic portrait of not only an age but of one individual's struggle with the limitations that social mores have placed upon her individuality. In screenwriter Eileen Atkins' illuminating adaptation, we see Clarissa's inner securities and social ennui.
Fleshed out with some insightful flashbacks in which we are clued to Clarissa's regrets, "Mrs. Dalloway" is a rich personal, as well as social, tapestry. Highest praise to Redgrave for her subtle performance; she economically conveys the inner torments of a woman who has always done "the right thing," often to her personal detriment.
Other performances are similarly precise, evoking the conflicts that arise from the role-playing that society invariably imposes on individuals. Compliments to Rupert Graves for his touching performance as a man whose life has been torn asunder by his World War I experiences.
Technical contributions are top drawer, especially David Richens' well-polished production design.
MRS. DALLOWAY
First Look Pictures
Producer Lisa Katselas Pare
Director Marleen Gorris
Screenwriter Eileen Atkins
Based on the novel by Virginia Woolf
Executive producers Chris Ball, William Tyrer, Simon Curtis, Bill Shepherd
Director of photography Sue Gibson
Production designer David Richens
Editor Michiel Richwein
Music Ilona Sekacz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Clarissa Dalloway Vanessa Redgrave
Septimus Warren-Smith Rupert Graves
Peter Walsh Alan Cox
Richard Dalloway John Standing
Running time -- 97 minutes...
With a wonderfully spare and radiant lead performance from Vanessa Redgrave, this film was a crowd-pleaser at the recent Toronto International Film Festival and should do splendidly on the art house circuit.
The well-tended wife of a Parliament member, Clarissa (Redgrave) has reached a peak in life where she has weathered all challenges and risen to the role for which she has scrupulously positioned herself for all her life. She is respectable and revered, but this station leaves her empty and unfulfilled.
With a stiff upper lip, holding high an antiseptic smile, she goes about her life, which is unfortunately reduced to organizing parties and get-togethers for, well, the same old crowd. Not surprisingly, the English upper crust during the 1920s is not that different from the current crop of top hats -- dowdy, conflicted, chatty and, of course, out-and-out batty.
An intelligent and insightful distillation of a Virginia Woolf novel, "Mrs. Dalloway" is a precise, pointillistic portrait of not only an age but of one individual's struggle with the limitations that social mores have placed upon her individuality. In screenwriter Eileen Atkins' illuminating adaptation, we see Clarissa's inner securities and social ennui.
Fleshed out with some insightful flashbacks in which we are clued to Clarissa's regrets, "Mrs. Dalloway" is a rich personal, as well as social, tapestry. Highest praise to Redgrave for her subtle performance; she economically conveys the inner torments of a woman who has always done "the right thing," often to her personal detriment.
Other performances are similarly precise, evoking the conflicts that arise from the role-playing that society invariably imposes on individuals. Compliments to Rupert Graves for his touching performance as a man whose life has been torn asunder by his World War I experiences.
Technical contributions are top drawer, especially David Richens' well-polished production design.
MRS. DALLOWAY
First Look Pictures
Producer Lisa Katselas Pare
Director Marleen Gorris
Screenwriter Eileen Atkins
Based on the novel by Virginia Woolf
Executive producers Chris Ball, William Tyrer, Simon Curtis, Bill Shepherd
Director of photography Sue Gibson
Production designer David Richens
Editor Michiel Richwein
Music Ilona Sekacz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Clarissa Dalloway Vanessa Redgrave
Septimus Warren-Smith Rupert Graves
Peter Walsh Alan Cox
Richard Dalloway John Standing
Running time -- 97 minutes...
- 9/23/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.