Tea with the Dames

Tea with the Dames (UK Title: Nothing Like a Dame) (Roger Michell, 2018) Sometimes it's nice to look behind the curtain. To look past the artifice and see the real, and meet the illusionists who create the illusions. What they think and feel informs the art and can sometimes one can glimpse the individual choices made to produce it, what the priorities are in making it, and it can even change how one subsequently views the art.

 

And, let's face it, it's fun to get "the dish," the gossip, the dirt, which is fun and facetious and is the spoonful of spice that makes the "educational purposes" go down a little easier.

 

The late director Roger Michell had the idea to film a little ritual he'd heard about. Of how four ladies of the theater: Joan Plowright, Eileen Atkins, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench would regularly get together at the West Sussex home of Plowright and her husband Laurence Olivier, when he needed a place close to where he was directing theater. The four saw the place as a bit of an idyll to unwind, talk shop, and as a means to get away with their families. Michell wanted to film the actresses, all named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, talking in a shared space of community.

But, it could hardly be called intimate. Proving that the mere act of observing changes the outcome, the actresses are beset by make-up artists, proper lighting, weather, staging—"have you ever sat like this in your life?"—and a flurry of crew—at one point, Maggie Smith chides a set photographer for taking too many pictures in her field of view and at another, they express shock that it's the first day of one of the crew-members. One is sure that one is watching real conversations—prompted, of course—and the actresses are very forthright, but one gets the sense that they're being honest, they're holding things in reserve for good behavior.

Plowright, nearly completely blind, is imperious, but chummy, Smith is hilariously tart, Dench completely honest, and swearing like a sailor, while Atkins is unafraid to be vulnerable.

—At one point, Plowright mentions that "none of us was ever in the front ranks of great beauties" Atkins recounts hearing an overheard conversation between producer-director in an early stage role: "She's not very pretty, is she?" "No, but she's sexy." "That saved me," she confesses.

—All of them recount stage jitters, with Atkins saying that "On the way to the theater I always think, would you like to be run over now? Or in a massive car accident? And I only just come out on the side of no."

—Michell asks what it was like to work with their husbands and Smith immediately replies "Which one?"

—commenting on their physical frailties, Maggie Smith asks Plowright if she wants to borrow one of her hearing aids (as Plowright's batteries have worn out) and Dench cackles "...and we have three working eyes between us!"

—During her stage run in "Othello" with Olivier, Smith recounts how a slap delivered by him connected and she wryly comments "It was the only time I saw real stars at the National Theater" and how Olivier was always criticizing how she said her vowels, and upon walking in on Olivier applying his Moor make-up "schmudge" said "How now, brown cow?" and noting her vowels, he said "Much better!"

—Dench is forced to recall her questioning director Peter Hall to play Cleopatra: "Are you sure you want a menopausal dwarf to play this?"

Interspersed with the interviews is much archival footage and photographs in their roles throughout their careers, both on stage and in film, as well as the ceremonies where they received their respective British honors, and it's a trip to see them through various stages of their lives doing comedy, drama, even Dench's turn as Sally Bowles in the 1969 staging of "Cabaret." There's some tart chiding of Dench's seeming to now get every part in Hollywood films. The conversation is lively, but, as the documentary nears its end, one can see energies starting to flag, and silences punctuating the conversation. It's a reminder of fragility even for the grandest of dames, even at the highest of teas.

"That's RUDE!" says Dench, outraged.

They're Americans." says Plowright. "That's how they talk!"

Morning Glory (2010)

Roger Michell died last year at the age of 65, before his latest film The Duke was released. It is out now and I recommend seeing it, especially in a theater, where it will do the most good. Michell's most popular film is probably Notting Hill, but he also made The Mother and Enduring Love (for you Daniel Craig fans), and Hyde Park on Hudson (with Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt). To sum up, he made movies that are usually placed in "art-houses" where films of a limited budget and less than frivolous subject matter, unsullied by hyperbolic press and saturation campaigns go to die...and merit consideration during Awards Season, where sometimes their fortunes are favored, but mostly forgotten. And he was darned good at it. 

 

This was written at the time of the film's release.

 

"You're Gon-na Make it After Alllll"*
or
"Will Someone Tell Me Why I Logged Off 'BangingGrannies.com' For This?"

Talk about quick turn-around. Plucky news-producer Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams) has just rebounded from being fired from her New Jersey TV station to being hired to produce an in-the-ratings-dumper morning news-klatsch in New York City. The stipulation from boss Jerry Barnes (Jeff Goldblum, whose height advantage over McAdams is used to very good advantage) is that she has to turn the ratings around on the clunker or the venerable TV-institution called "DayBreak" will be cancelled.

But who wants to work in an institution?

The place is a televised mad-house. Goofy weatherman, clueless reporters, a perv' anchor (he delivers the second headline above), and the Nurse Ratched of the place is the veteran house-mother-anchor (Diane Keaton) who views Becky as just one more producer for a show that's "a revolving door for cretinous morons." She's seen 'em come and go, while she's been "pulling the train up the hill (...with my TEETH!)" for fourteen years. "DayBreak" needs to be fixed.

Becky starts to shake things up, and her first job is to find an anchor a little less orange. She goes the credibility route and seeks out Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford, who hasn't done this much mugging since Return of the Jedi**), a veteran news-man (he lunches with Chris Matthews, Bob Schieffer, and Morley Safer), grumpily living out his golden parachute contract, and has no desire to lower his standards working on a show with "half an audience who've lost the remote, and the other half are waiting for the nurse to turn them over." 

Warned that he is "the third-worst person in the world...after Kim Jong-Il and Angela Lansbury" by the movie's obligatory boy-friend (Patrick Wilson...slumming***), Becky finds a loop-hole in his contract and forces the pro to "lower his standards," but raise the bar on passive-aggressive behavior (he refuses to "banter, from the Latin word for 'gibber like a moron'")...as if the show needed any more of that. Pretty soon, every surface at the station has Becky-forehead-sized dents from her beating herself into them—that and her seeming incapacity to open doors are the two consistent jokes of which no opportunity is passed.

It's got the TV-industry cynicism down, but raised to the bitchy level of the fashion industry (the writer, Aline Brosh McKenna, also wrote The Devil Wears Prada, ...and 27 Dresses , and Laws of Attraction, and Three to Tango...so this is the first movie of hers I haven't actively avoided...although I did see Prada, and admired it). Director Roger Michell can do rom-com fine (Notting Hill), but he's capable of doing better stuff, and he keeps everything lively and semi-sunny, despite the rampant cruelty tossed around like so much unnecessary paper-shuffling on a news-desk. But, he can't do much with the cliched material, from the "meet cute" to the "slo-mo run through new York." 

Morning Glory is okay, but it breaks no boundaries (or news, for all that), it's another "working girl" comedy in the revolving door of them.

* Cue the hat-throw. Give credit where credit is due: I didn't notice this was basically "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (and a two-hour stretch of the half-hour pilot, at that) until Ford's crusty news vet says to the young producer "You have a repellent moxie" in the same way that Ed Asner's Lou Grant said "You've got spunk....I HATE spunk!"  Where's Betty White when you need her?

** ...which makes me think something is wrong.  Ford is the master of the subtle slow-burn comic performance, but this one is at a hard-boil. His lines delivered in a husky, phlegmatic drone, you start to wonder if Ford—like his character—just isn't happy to be there (y'know, like his narration in BladeRunner?). Then, he manages to take what should have been the movie's worst scene, and make it shine, giving it depth, resonance and heart...while still not betraying his character. Nice work.

*** Yeah, but on the other hand, I've felt so sorry for so many good actresses playing "the girlfriend" over the years, this is one for equal opportunity. 

Venus

Roger Michell died last year at the age of 65, before his latest film The Duke was released. It is out now and I recommend seeing it, especially in a theater, where it will do the most good. Michell's most popular film is probably Notting Hill, but he also made The Mother and Enduring Love (for you Daniel Craig fans), Hyde Park on Hudson (with Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt), and Morning Glory (with Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton)—which we'll be looking at tomorrow. To sum up, he made movies that are usually placed in "art-houses" where films of a limited budget and less than frivolus subject matter, unsullied by hyperbolic press and saturation campaigns go to die...and merit consideration during Awards Season, where sometimes their fortunes are favored, but mostly forgotten. And he was darned good at it. 

 

Here's a look at one of his films—featuring another amazing performance of Peter O'Toole. It was also the feature film debut of Jodie Whitaker, who made history as the 13th Doctor Who. This was written at the time of the film's release on DVD.

 

Venus (Roger Michell, 2006) Peter O'Toole, in an interview in the special features section of the Venus" DVD sums it up as a story between "a dirty old man and a slutty young woman." Exactly, and if it had been sold like that it would have made much more money at the box-office. As it is, the film has to stand on its own merits, which are considerable. Hanif Kureishi's script is literate but low-down, full of humanity in all its frailties, both young and old, well-played by a stellar cast. And that's where the elements of specialness occur:

1) O'Toole--he plays an elderly thespian who, these days, "specializies in corpses," who has lived an impulsive romantic life, and in the winter of his discontent, still does. O'Toole makes the most of the words, but, more than any other actor, knows what to do between the lines. O'Toole is frail, but not THIS frail, and his tremulousness is a stunning act of craft over pride. He's not alone.

2) Playing the ex-wife he abandoned with three kids ("under six," she reminds him) is Vanessa Redgrave, the greatest actress extant, who does the part sans make-up, unglamourously and brilliantly. To see O'Toole and Redgrave play a scene together for the first time is a great event, and should be required viewing for all aspiring actors. These two actors, once coltish and prancing, now old and playing broken down is heart-breaking, but exciting (I'm starting to sound like bloody James Lipton!)

3) Jodie Whittaker, in a seemingly artless way, matches them. That is not an insignificant thing. Picked, no doubt, because she resembles the young Vanessa Redgrave, one waits for the scene where the two meet. The viewer is not disappointed.

4) A scene where O'Toole, humiliated, goes for a walk and finds himself at a small, humble proscenium--the benches covered and strewn with leaves and garbage, as the soundtrack becomes awash with O'Toole's voice from past performances of different eras and different fidelities that's as fine as any piece of film I've ever seen

5) A waitress at the old actor's favorite eating hole sees a picture of the young actor in the paper. "Gawd, he was GO-geous, wasn't he?" Someone should make another starrer for O'Toole and call it "Give The Man The Friggin' Oscar He So Richly Deserves, Already" and be done with it.

2022 Update: Peter O'Toole was nominated for 8 Best Actor Performances and received an "Honorary Award" in 2003.

The Duke

"Not That Sodding Painting Again!"

"Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious." 

The Duke of Wellington

Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) is an embarrassment. A retiree, he never seems to be able to keep a job, much to the consternation of his beleaguered wife, Dorothy (Helen Mirren) who is a house-cleaner for the ministerial Gowlings. No, instead Kempton keeps writing plays for the BBC to produce and they're always rejected. Perhaps in revolt or retribution, he's removed the coil from his telly so he doesn't have to pay the tax imposed to get the government station, which he has to pay whether he receives it or not. It's a tax revolt, he says. Pensioners and veterans shouldn't have to pay a bloody tax to get the National News. And he doesn't give a fig who knows and, in fact, instead of getting a job, he'd rather sit in the street to get petitions signed for free BBC. On top of that, son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead) is spending less time at home, wanting to become a shipbuilder, while other son Kenny (Jack Bandeira) supposedly works construction in Leeds, but might actually be doing some things unlawful in his free time. Dorothy, with so much on her shoulders is fit to bust, with her taking most of the load and him off on his do-gooder campaigns, compensating.

Compensating?  Well, it isn't discussed in the house, but there was another Bunton—Marion—dead at 18 from a bicycle accident and it was Kempton gave her the bike. He blames himself, and doesn't tell Dorothy about the visits to her grave, as she won't discuss it in her house, and Marion's portrait is itself buried...in a desk drawer. Dorothy is the bread-winner and she's the wife and that is respected, even if things happen that she doesn't need to know about.

But, a 13 day stretch in Durham prison for not paying the television tax is her last straw. Now, he's a felon and bringing dishonor to the household.

Kempton, to keep the peace, asks for one last indulgence: he wants to go to London to talk to "the Beeb" about his plays and take his tax initiative before the Parliament—after all, they just paid £140,000 for a ruddy Spanish portrait of the Duke of Wellington, it's the least they can do to hear him out. And after that, he'll get a proper job...and keep it. No more quixotic campaigns, no more lying. He'll do his bit and Helen is relieved.

The trip to London, however, does not go well. No one at the BBC will see him, and at Parliament, the guards do see him...out...onto the street. Maybe it was the bullhorn. Anyway, when he returns, there's a new resident under the roof—that portrait of the Duke of Wellington that Kempton's been grousing about. To keep Dorothy from finding out, he hides it making a false back for the bureau in Kenny's room. Nobody'll find it there.

Certainly not the authorities, who think it's commando's or super-sophisticated art thieves behind the theft and haven't a clue as to who's behind it. Certainly not the cheerfully cantankerous old duffer who is protesting in plain sight and is outspoken enough that it gets him fired from every job he's lucky enough to land.

It's "based on a true story" which means nobody could make this stuff up. Not the circumstances, not the psychological underpinnings, and certainly not the quixotic nature of its main protagonist, who, for all his bluster, is at heart a good soul. In a film full of fine performances—Mirren and Goode are especially winning—it is Jim Broadbent's fusty performance that anchors the movie even while trying so hard to rock the boat. This is one of those movies that charm "the blue-hairs" but is so winning without pushing the twee factor that one respects it for all the chuckles it induces.

Credit the excellent script—which throws in an added mystery and motivation that adds depth rather than obfuscation—and the direction of Roger Michell, who didn't live long enough to see the film released. Michell's use of split-screen might seem like a concession to 1960's period-style, but it does produce one essential grace note that moves the heart, while also locking in the notion that everyone has their own framing, whether self-induced or imposed, that we reside in, that keeps us at arm's length.

The Goya's "not all that good, is it?"  But The Duke is something of a masterpiece.

"The Duke" makes a cameo.