…adapted from the Booker Prize–winning 1989 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. …
The film was a critical and box office success and it was nominated for eight Academy Awards …
In 1958 postwar Britain, Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, receives a letter from the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, now Mrs. Benn. Their past employer, the Earl of Darlington, has died a broken man, his reputation destroyed by his pre–Second World War support of Nazi Germany, and his stately country house has been sold to retired US Congressman Jack Lewis. Allowed to borrow the Daimler, Stevens sets off for the West Country to see Miss Kenton for the first time in decades.
One of my fave movies. The novel is excellent too.
Oh wow, I love this movie. So utterly fascinating watching all that maddening ‘British restraint’ on Hopkins’ part. Also fun to see oldschool British elite Lord Darlington get ruined due to his amateurism and selective arrogance.
My heart kind of broke for Emma Thompson’s character, but in the end she found a good man I guess, while Hopkins could only keep retreating in to himself.
I suppose there’s more stuff out there like this (“Howards End” didn’t quite cut it for me) if only I were to look harder. Actually, I found Downton Abbey quite nice, so at least that’s somewhat similar. (and much, much longer)
