The Remains Of The Day

I’m an Emma Thompson-fan, an Anthony Hopkins-fan and Hugh Grant and so on. Plenty of people, therefor, to make this film worth while, right?

I know it has won prizes and people were full of it. I just couldn’t find it. The story keeps dragging on for over two hours.
When I was in my early teens I would have loved this film. I hated the Hollywood-formula where they would always, always live ‘happily ever after’. I loved Welcome To The Dollhouse for that very reason. In the end, nothing had happened to make Dawn Wiener’s life even remotedly better.

The same here, really. Two people from a house staff who only seem to look at the quality of work they both deliver within that house, have to appear as if they do so without any emotion.
Except that’s not the case. Anthony Hopkins, who plays Mr Stevens, the head of the household, makes sure his father, William Stevens, gets hired by his employer. With this step, he is no longer objective.
Emma Thompson, playing Miss Kenton, notices immediately. And this is where they are of for a wrong start.
Mr Stevens doesn’t actually allow anyone to even doubt his father being unable to fullfill his duties. It is not until his father’s ill health simply collapses, that he is forced to see that. And still then, both Mr Stevens and his father, don’t actually agree on the possibility that the job is over.

The affections Mr Stevens has for Miss Kenton are so well hidden that a few of the scenes that do make it clear, also point to the fact that Mr Stevens is not worthy of her feelings for him: someone who tries to hide it that well, for the sake of the job that needs to be done and so on, is far too much in love with that job, to ever feel any duty towards his subject of affection.

Of course, this is entirely my opinion on such matters, not especially on the film. I did think the film to be too long. For that time it was perhaps normal, nowadays it tends to get a bit long, that many speeches during dinners and people agreeing, disagreeing and noticing the staff won’t open their mouths as that’s simply not their job.

It’s also nice to see Christopher Reeve walking and being his lovely self here!