Writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory had been joined at the hip for a decade and a half when they suddenly found their true metier (and brand as Merchant/Ivory) adapting this lesser, lightly comic Henry James novel. A mix of literary cachet, handsome period settings, and not quite enough camera setups to lend rhythm, proved catnip for a certain niche looking for cinema with manners rather than cinema that matters. Their modus operandi less ask not what you can do for literary classics, ask what literary classics can do for you.* (Great Books used the way other films ‘borrowed’ fine art or classical music for background and classy window-dressing.) Here less smooth than later, and none the worse for it. Awkward pacing and odd line readings from a cast that’s half spot-on/half over-parted lending interest to a simple story of worldly Euro-titled cousins from the Old World testing the bluff/honest charms of 1850s New England Transcendentalists. Underrated Lee Remick is enchantingly uneasy picking her way thru this strange new world while brother (and minor Prince!) Tim Choate fits right in by not minding that he doesn’t fit in.* The two spending all their time with cousins or friends thereof. And if fur never flies, enough hackles are raised to keep things fairly lively, modestly entertaining. If only it had a bit more drive (and less prettiness) to it.
DOUBLE-BILL: *The grand Merchant/Ivory exception not one of their acclaimed serious dramas but the joyous A ROOM WITH A VIEW/’85 where they all took E. M. Forster’s advice to throw away their Baedeker and dare to get lost.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *A mediocre if enthusiastic painter, perhaps the brother’s portraits would be better if he didn’t seat his subjects in front of windows where bright sunshine would make their face impossible to see. (Or was he making cut-out silhouettes?)
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