Reviews

Having just seen this film in the cinema, I have to say it didn't flag at all, and it was graced by one of Maggie Smith's greatest performances - and which fully deserved her Emmy award. The film dramatises the necessary illusions with which we need to live our lives. For Emily Delahunty, alcohol and the escapism of the romance fiction she writes are the props to her very existence. To keep sane the illusion of happiness sometimes is necessary to keep going. And yet, out of tragedy comes the hint of salvation: some kind of family, and a girl who becomes a symbol of how she can have hope for the future. This is not a cosy film, as some misguided critics have labelled it. It is not gardens, Italy, cups of tea: it is a film of illusion, escapism, isolation and the human spirit in the face of tragedy and death. Released in the UK after the quaint "Ladies in Lavender" it was unfortunately seen by the critics as exactly the same kind of film - and so missing the point completely.

Playing the troubled alcoholic, a vulnerable ageing romance novelist, Smith is on amazing form. Never mannered, she is perfect in her second role in a William Trevor novella (her first was in the 1984 "Mrs Silly" for ITV in the UK, for which she was nominated for a BAFTA). Using those expressive eyes, and a crushed, occasionally slurred voice, she draws you into the film. If this makes me sound like a Smith groupie, I have to point out that I disliked intensely this actress's mannered caricatures in such films as "Tea with Mussolini" or "Washington Square" (though, faced with the awful scripts, maybe she decided just to push it for laughs...). That is why she deserves recognition for this film: she reminds us that, with the right material, she can be the best - and not just the witty old bat in "Gosford Park" or the the stern teacher in "Harry Potter". After Smith's Emmy award, it was criminal that Meryl Streep robbed Dame Maggie at the Golden Globes for her raiding of the dressing-up box in "Angels in America".

For the supporting cast, Ronnie Barker, Timothy Spall, and Chris Cooper are all superb: understated, natural, and working in a brilliant ensemble. They have such rapport with Smith that the film just whizzes by.

This film bursts into life in a few electrifying scenes - but these scenes are perhaps muted by the general leisurely air of the whole.

What can be said is that this film belongs to Maggie Smith: although Judi Dench has the lovelorn role of the smitten sister, it is Dame Maggie who has the wider variety of emotions, the presence, and the charisma which gives the film the energy it needs to involve the viewer. A case in point is the scene where Dame Judi has her point of emotional release - and Dame Maggie tops it with just the slightest nuance of phrase. Indeed, hers is a performance of subtlety and delicacy, so understated and insightful, that it recalls the outstanding work that she did in "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne". If it was up to me, Dame Maggie would be right up there in contention for the Oscar and BAFTA.

She is, of course, perfectly paired with Dame Judi, who creates a portrayal of both pathos and charm. There is such rapport between the two that it wipes away memories of the caricatures of "Tea With Mussolini" and replaces it with genuine truth and humanity. The two dames are underscored by the comic bluster of Miriam Margolyes and the suspicious lusting of David Warner.

This is a film of emotion and elegance. If it lacks narrative drive and dynamic then it is more than made up for by the space created for the talents of the actors. It is a film which lives on in the memory - and for that we mainly have to thank the performance of Maggie Smith.