The Bostonians (1984)

You won't be disappointed!

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The Bostonians on the whole is not among the best Merchant-Ivory films, like A Room with a View, Howard's End and especially The Remains of the Day, nor is it anywhere near The Innocents, The Wings of the Dove and particularly The Heiress as among the best Henry James adaptations. However, while it has its problems it is not a bad film and does laudably adapting a difficult work (even for an author that is notoriously difficult to adapt like James).Are there flaws here? Yes, there are. The changed ending is far too melodramatic and clumsily written as a (possible) attempt to make it accessible to modern audiences (maybe?), undermining any intellectual sensibility that the story or James beforehand show. While Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's screenplay fares very credibly mostly it doesn't come off completely successfully, the savage humour of the book is very toned down (in contrast to the somewhat lack of subtlety, pretty overt actually, in the writing of the Olive and Verena relationship, loved the tension between the two though) and sometimes absent which gives the film a bland feel sometimes, the characters are still very interesting and complex but lack the philosophical depth of the book and that final speech is so cornball and misplaced.Merchant-Ivory films always did have deliberate pacing, but more than made up for it with slightly more involving drama and characterisation and more consistent script-writing than seen here, sometimes The Bostonians moved along at a snail's pace which made the blander, less involving dramatically sections almost interminable. And despite being devilishly handsome and with the right amount of virile masculinity Christopher Reeve seemed completely out of his depth as Ransom, throughout he is stiff and although his character is unlikeable in the first place there is very little in Reeve's performance that makes it obvious what Olive and Verena see in him.However, there is much to admire as well. As always with a Merchant-Ivory film it is incredibly well-made, with truly luxuriant cinematography, exquisite settings and scenery and some of the most vivid costume design personally seen from a film recently. There is a beautiful music score as well that couldn't have fitted more ideally, and appropriately restrained direction from James Ivory, and while there were a few misgivings with the script Jhabvala actually adapts it very credibly. It's a very thought-provoking, elegantly written and literate script that has a good deal of emotional impact, it is not easy condensing James' very dense, wordy and actions-occurring-inside-characters'-heads prose to something cohesive for film but Jhabvala manages it with grace and intelligence on the most part. Again, pacing could have been tighter but the story is still very poignant and has a good degree of tension and emotion.Best of all is how beautifully played it is by a very good cast, apart from Reeve. Madeleine Potter does lack allure for Verena, but plays with gentle winsomeness, intelligence and sweet charm. In the supporting roles, Linda Hunt is dependably very good, Jessica Tandy is moving in her performance and (in particular) Nancy Marchand's verbal cat-and-mouse-game helps give the film some of its tension. Along with the cinematography and costumes, one of The Bostonians' best aspects is the towering performance of Vanessa Redgrave, Olive is more sympathetically written here and Redgrave brings a real intensity and affecting dignity to the role which makes for compulsive viewing.All in all, much to admire but also could have been better. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Women of Boston committed to the suffrage movement on shown in a picture which resembles the Seneca Falls Convention Meeting of Women in 1848 with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others participating. The film belonged in 1848. It is thoroughly boring.The late Chris Reeves was horribly miscast as a Mississippi attorney up from the south who falls in love with one of the suffragettes. In the way, is the dedicated leader, played by Vanessa Redgrave, who wants the woman to remain in the movement. Anyone who marries from her thinking can't be totally committed. The fact that there is a lesbian situation going on between the two women supposedly doesn't enter into her thinking. Right.Co-star Jessica Tandy is made up to look like Cady Stanton.The ending where Redgrave makes her passioned speech for the movement after the other lady runs off with Reeve is too late. When the latter didn't speak, most of the people left the auditorium. This is what movie viewers should have done as well.

I've always been interested in the James adaptations,and in the Ivory films.The Bostonians ' first half's calligraphy and distinguished Callophily is pleasing,then the groundless length becomes oppressive,annoying and exasperating,so that finally I loathed this movie.That's no way to treat the viewers!The unjustified and intolerable length does not serve the narration,not the atmosphere,nor the characters' development. Wasted footage!I began by liking The Bostonians ,I finished by loathing this movie that goes nowhere.(James was quite loquacious and blabbed with a senile joy,and the movie gets also very talkative.)Reeve smiles intelligently and even ironically from time to time,which kind of contradicts his supposed plainness.He acts somehow beside the point,but I guess the idea of introducing him as a tom cat with transient smiles was meant to cheer a little this overlong H. James adaptation,and as a needed antidote for the crabby Mrs. Redgrave.Reeve is almost brave in feigning some real interest for Madeleine Potter's character.The two actresses I liked are:(1)Nancy New (as "Olive Chancellor"'s far more attractive sister);(2)Nancy Marchand.Mrs. Redgrave is a broody,headstrong,crabbed,exalted and poisonous,felonious damsel ,as interesting as Lenin's books.As a matter of fact,this poor woman looks rather feeble-minded.One hopes in vain she'll have her fling with "Verena Tarrant".She is here as cranky as ever.Mrs. Madeleine Potter is very uninteresting, insipid,and as fascinating as a sausage.Towards the final of The Bostonians ,I swore at the director, at the scriptwriter and at the entire cast.I would seize Ivory by his ears and force him watch many Bruce Lee movies and many Jackie Chan movies,so much that he gets able to make at least something that well-thought.The whole plot is utterly nauseating.The characters are as viscid as the mollusks.This makes the movie a morass.This is a show,don't ask me to judge it as if it were a novel.I'm talking about Ivory's show,not about James' novel.The most annoying fact is that Mrs. Redgrave seems to enjoy her role;this is unacceptable!(But it is also obvious that no member of the cast is able to get what this show is about.This may serve,though in a paradoxical way,as a justification for them all!These people (Reeve, Nancy Marchand and Nancy New) performed hoping there is a meaning they are not yet able to comprehend.)

With an uncompromising dedication to character, and a flair for graceful, richly-textured storytelling, Merchant-Ivory seemed incapable of mediocrity. And with the recent passing of Ismail Merchant, I've been thumbing through the company's stellar filmography with renewed appreciation. Adoring the costume drama, I donned my comfy slippers and International Coffee and settled into 120 minutes of Merchant-Ivory bliss. What I got instead was The Bostonians, the MI treatment of Henry James' witty and satirical novel about the earliest days of the feminist movement. This production took a fun and biting social commentary and turned it into gooey melodrama. It failed to show the irony of a headstrong young feminist (daughter of a "mesmeric healer" and a chronic hypochondriac) allowing herself to be manipulated on all sides while falling for a dull, misogynistic Southern lawyer. It turned the classic Plutonic relationship with her feminist mentor into the clawing desperation of an aging lesbian. Script appeal seesawed between eating a mouthful of alum, and blowing butterscotch pudding out one's nose. Editing was at once jagged and lumpy, spending copious amounts of film on innocuous bits of business, only to slam the guillotine so close to some dialog that it made me wonder about my DVD player. And that's only the half of it. Stiff and lumbering is all I ever expect of the now canonized Christopher Reeve, so this performance shouldn't have surprised me. But it did. Reeve was channeling some kind of Confederate Heathcliff with a little Mary Shelley thrown in for good measure. Reading his lines from crib notes apparently taped to the bottom of the camera lens, he never blinked nor gave the slightest indication of understanding his dialog. He seemed to be forever walking downhill, and was patently incapable of moving his head. On seeing this performance, one could almost believe that the future riding accident might actually improve his flexibility. The heroin, as played by a mush-mouthed Madeleine Potter, showed all the plucky conviction of a plate of cold baked beans (yes, with the little puddles of congealed pork fat floating on top). As for the usually magnificent Vanessa Redgrave (in the desperate aging lesbian role), I say 'let's just forget this ever happened.' The only redeeming performances were two tiny bits sent in by Linda Hunt and Jessica Tandy. I'd be surprised if their scripts totaled more than 150 words. It would seem the director didn't bother to load their bloomers with the 100 lbs of wet oatmeal like he did with everyone else.In a way, it's a shame I only rented The Bostonians. I'll miss out on the gratification I'd have felt in putting it in the microwave. What a tragic waste of good couch time.