Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Plenty (1985)
Director: Fred Schepisi
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
David Hare has been laying into the British for so long now, one begins to wonder what they ever did to him. When Plenty was first produced on the stage, its compelling vision of our postwar decline, seen through the eyes of a wartime heroine, had its edge dulled by a hectoring moral righteousness. Balance is restored in Schepisi's film, largely by the obvious filmic process of shifting the point of view among the characters. The life of Susan Traherne (Streep) suffers a steady decline alongside the more retrograde incidents of our history (Festival of Britain, Suez), until her only option is to take to the road as a vagrant to try and recapture her former glory as a spy in World War II France, when the world seemed young. Performances all round are excellent, especially Dance as her long-suffering boyfriend, and Gielgud as the last exponent of decency at the Foreign office. Whether or not you buy the message, it's a work that qualifies as epic, and reveals Hare as a great Romantic. CPea.Author: CPea
Cast & crew
Director: Fred Schepisi
Producer: Edward R Pressman, Joseph Papp
Cast: Meryl Streep, Sam Neill, Charles Dance, John Gielgud, Tracey Ullman, Sting, Ian McKellen, André Maranne full cast
Duration: 124 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now