jcnsoflorida
Knowing of its cable provenance I rented this with mild trepidation. It bears a few telltale signs of Cable Drama 101 but manages at least partly to transcend. Mirren is superb as always and near the end even looked a little like Vivian Leigh. (Some credit due to costumes and makeup). Kudos to her for baring her breasts. The interesting surprise here is Olivier Martinez who is better than Warren Beatty in the 1961 original. WB was derailed by the Italian accent with which El Martinez has no problem. Also, Martinez is the right age for the part; WB was young and up-and-coming, wrong for the story. Both Mirren and Martinez seem to have been aware of the cable tendency towards obviousness because the best thing about the remake is the fact that they do bring layers and subtlety to their respective performances. Enough years have elapsed to make this is a period film, whereas the 1961 version was not. Any period film also has to finesse the sensibility of the time when it was made. This remake portrays the period fairly well and in some ways takes a rather fresh approach. Despite its shortcomings you too might find yourself liking it more than you thought you would. (2014)
jmillerdp
A new version of Tennessee Williams' story, about a 50-ish retired actress (Helen Mirren) who finds herself adrift in Rome after her husband passes away. She is soon preyed upon by a gypsy (Anne Bancroft) and her gigolo (Oliver Martinez). What happens from there is how Mrs. Stone deals with the pair and how she tries to find her way in her widowhood and her retirement from the theater.Since this is a modern telling, there is a lot more sex, which Miren excels in, I have to say! As with most Williams' stories, this is about lost people, so things aren't going to turn out so happy. That being the case, it's a good film overall, and the Rome scenery is cool.The best part is the film score by John Altman. It is very reminiscent of Gabriel Yared's work. He scored films like "The English Patient."****** (6 Out of 10 Stars)
Fisher L. Forrest
Anytime you get involved with Tennessee Williams' characters, you are sure to find yourself at 3 AM in the dark night of someone's soul, when the last waltz has already been danced. But that someone is not necessarily a "real" person. Rather, it's a "creation" by an author whose own life was so "unquietly desperate" that reality had not much meaning for him, a fact which is reflected in his "unreal" characters. These "people" of Williams' certainly give and have given a number of actresses considerable work over the years, and Helen Mirren is surely one of the best. This novella is one of Williams' darkest tales, but should not be regarded as in any way a look at reality, unless you conceive that most of the people of this world are certifiably insane, a condition which Mirren limns admirably. Williams, I think, was intent on delineating a world, which he thought of as real, but which probably derived from his worst nightmares, waking or otherwise, could not actually be realistic. A look at this world is not necessarily an "entertaining" experience, and I doubt that Williams intended it to be. So why bother? Well, you can enjoy the work of the actors, if not the story, and you can speculate about the author as I have been doing. As he was a homosexual, I have considerable doubt that Williams can be taken seriously when he deals with women. Yet almost all his protagonists are women. I wonder why. Oh, I haven't even discussed the story, and I don't think I will, except to say it involves a woman whose actions will seem absolutely incomprehensible to us "normal" folk. My rating of 9 reflects mainly my admiration for Helen Mirren's work. Otherwise, the film offers many irritations, which you can select for yourself.
jpmcmu-1
By the middle of the movie, we decided to continue watching only for the costumes and the scenery. All of the actors are wooden except for Helen Mirren. Poor Anne Bancroft. Spmeone went to a lot of trouble to make a beautiful movie but skimped on the editing.There were parts of the movie that were intended to be dramatic, but we found humorous. Did people in the 1950s really walk around Rome eating pizza? I have to figure out if Karen Stone's fey senior friend was an original character or an allusion to Tennessee Williams himself. Was it really necessary to add a flamboyantly gay senior male to this production?
AD
