The French Lieutenant's Woman
by Karel Reisz
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Charlotte Mitchell, Emily Morgan, Hilton McRae, Jeremy Irons, Meryl StreepDirector: Karel Reisz
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 124 minutes
Release Date: 1995-06-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Publisher: MGM (Video & DVD)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
VHS Movie Reviews of The French Lieutenant's Woman
Movie Review: Story Within A Story Concept Works Beautifully In This Film
Summary: 4 Stars
This 1981 film version of a famous novel by John Fowles from a few years earlier stars Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons at the height of their youthful attractiveness if not their fame. Streep plays the dual roles of Sarah and Anna. Sarah is the title character, a young Victorian woman whose life has seemingly been ruined by her relationship with a Frenchman who abandoned her. Anna is the modern American actress who portrays her and who is involved in an affair with her costar, Mike, despite them both being in other committed relationships. Jeremy Irons plays this actor, Mike, as well as Sarah's love interest in the film Charles. Charles is a paleontologist and wealthy man of leisure who while recently engaged to a silly rich girl develops an obsession for the mysterious, forlorn but lovely Sarah.
The movie was obviously filmed on location in England and is quite beautiful to look at with lush outdoor scenes and ornate Victorian interiors and costumes. The story within a story approach was not used in the novel but the book would be particularly difficult to faithfully film because it has three alternate endings. The problem with the alternate endings is partly and cleverly solved by using the modern days actors' relationship to portray one of the alternatives while Sarah and Charles' story ends in another possible conclusion offered by the novel. The movie should appeal to those who love the Victorian era, romances or Thomas Hardy as the story is quite reminiscent of some of his novels.
Summary of The French Lieutenant's Woman
Writer Harold Pinter (Betrayal) and director Karel Reisz (Isadora) take an experimental spin with John Fowles's magnificent novel set in Victorian England, and come up with something puzzling. Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep play the forbidden lovers in Fowles's story, but in a parallel story line they also play contemporary actors performing those characters in a movie production and having an affair of their own during off-hours. Got that? Considering that Fowles himself presents alternative endings in his novel, something equally eccentric is called for here. But little is accomplished by this intertwining of a fictional past and present, and the opportunity to do justice to a great story is lost. On the plus side, Irons and Streep are instantly striking as a natural couple on screen, and their presence makes watching this film easy enough despite the larger problems. --Tom KeoghArt House & International VHS Video
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