The Remains of the Day (1993)
Directed by James Ivory

Film Review

Kazuo Ishiguro's critically acclaimed novel The Remains of the Day (winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989) is faultlessly adapted for the big screen by the award-winning team of screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and director James Ivory, whose previous literary adaptations include such cinematic jewels as Heat and Dust, A Room With a View and Howards End.  The recurring central theme of James Ivory's oeuvre - the frustration of personal desires by social and other constraints - is once again delicately rendered in this, his most perfectly crafted film to date.  The Remains of the Day is a profoundly moving study in repressed love, whose apparent gentility and calm are belied by the ferocity with which it pierces the heart in its closing scenes. 

The best film to come out of the partnership of producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory, The Remains of the Day was highly praised by the critics on its first release and received eight Oscar nominations, although it failed (remarkably) to win a single award (Schindler's List prevented it from getting the Best Picture and Best Director awards, and Tom Hanks robbed Anthony Hopkins of the Best Actor award).  Not only is it a supremely elegant piece of filmmaking, beautifully photographed by Tony Pierce-Roberts and evocatively scored by Richard Robbins, it is also intensely moving.  Through some deft writing and flawless acting, The Remains of the Day is assuredly one of cinema's most heartbreaking and authentic depictions of unrequited love, a film that stays with you long after you have seen it, along with the aching sense of loss that it so powerfully evokes.

Following on from their memorable collaboration on Howards End, Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson are brought together again for another fraught romantic encounter, and, more than anything, it is their extraordinary screen rapport which makes The Remains of the Day such a rich and devastatingly affecting piece of cinema.  As the stiff butler who is chronically incapable of expressing his true feelings, Hopkins turns in the finest performance of his career (and even possibly the finest performance of any British film), but it is only in his scenes with Thompson (also at her absolute best) that the full impact of his work hits home.  The presence of such stars as James Fox, Christopher Reeve and Hugh Grant (each at his customary best) cannot draw our attention away from the two leads, who are simply stunning.

The genius of Jhabvala's screenplay lies not in what is said, but rather in what is left unsaid, the words that Stevens so evidently wants to utter (and which Miss Kenton so desperately wants to hear) but which get strangled at birth like troublesome puppies as the butler goes about his duties. Stevens is a victim of his professionalism and misplaced loyalty to his employer; he will allow nothing to distract him from his work as a first rate butler.  It is evident that he desperately needs emotional support from others, but it is equally apparent that he is incapable of accepting it.  In one touching scene, Stevens is seemingly unaffected when he learns of his father's death - his work must always come first.  It is as if he is afraid of the power of his own emotions, and so he is compelled to lock them away, petrified of the havoc they may wreak if ever they were to escape.  Hopkins offers up only the merest hint of Stevens' private battle to repress his feelings - just enough to expose the character's inner conflict and force us to share his exquisite torment.  The sequence in which Stevens' unspoken hopes are finally and irrevocably dashed when Miss Kenton makes her fatal decision at the end of the film is brutal in its poignancy, all the more heartrending for the way in which Hopkins and Thompson underplay the scene - once again, their two characters find it impossible to say what they really feel.  The Remains of the Day reaches parts that most romantic dramas fail to come within miles of touching - an emotional roller coaster of the gentlest and cruellest kind you can imagine.  If you have tears, prepare to shed them now, by the bucket-load.  Then, go and read Kazuo Ishiguro's marvellous novel, and do it all over again.

Film Synopsis

Mr James Stevens is the butler at Darlington Hall, one of England's grander stately homes.  Recently the Hall has changed hands and Stevens now serves Mr Lewis, a retired American congressman.  Stevens' previous employer, Lord Darlington, lived as a recluse before he died, having lost a lawsuit against a tabloid newspaper that branded him a Nazi sympathiser during WWII.  Stevens is in the process of hiring more servants for his new employer when he receives a letter from a former colleague, Miss Kenton, who worked at the Hall as a housekeeper twenty years previously.  In her letter, Miss Kenton reveals that her marriage has been a disappointment and describes her time at Darlington Hall as the happiest of her life.  On the pretext of persuading Miss Kenton to resume her former duties at the Hall, Stevens arranges to meet her at the seaside resort where she now lives.  As he undertakes the long car journey across England, the butler casts his mind back to the 1930s, when he first met Miss Kenton and gradually developed a close relationship with her.  Anxious not to let his personal feelings intrude upon his professional duties, Stevens treated Miss Kenton with a detachment that befitted both their situations, but this did not prevent them from growing fond of one another.  In the twilight of his years, Stevens finally realises what Miss Kenton meant to him and how he has wasted his life.  Maybe there is still time for him to show her how much she really means to him...