Word: broadbent
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...woman dying of a mysterious illness. Walters came into the forefront of the British acting world with "Educating Rita" where she held her own with Michael Caine. She did the same with Jeanne Moreau in the recent release "The Summer House." Her husband, Deric, comes to life with Jim Broadbent assuming the role. Broadbent has established himself as a brilliant character actor, playing the role of the bartender in "The Crying Game" and the puttering father in "Life Is Sweet." With these experienced actors, "The Wedding Gift" can do nothing else but live up to the status of these former...
This film calls on both of these actors to bring out the full range of emotions. The chemistry Broadbent and Walters display on screen makes it seems as if they have known each other for years. They play the parts like they understand each persons idiosyncracies and pitfalls. Basically, they seem like they have been married for decades. But with the traditional British wit, biting and cynical and cuttingly humorous, their two characters endure the unspeakable...
Walters and Broadbent give depth and poigniancy to these roles. Supporting them is the hilarious Thora Hird who plays Deric's mother. Slightly schezophrenic, she will call Deric and leave her end of the line unoccupied. When she finally returns to the phone, she conducts a three-way conversation between her son, herself and her cat, whom she refers to as Deric's brother. All the while she is putting sugar on the cat's food. The introduction of her character, and the moments when we see her provide much-needed relief for the weightiness of the rest...
...Pets or Meat" is a perfect primer for the final short of the series, Mike Leigh's "A Sense of History," where we follow an English patriarch on a walking tour of his estate as he delivers a monologue on its history. Actor Jim Broadbent gives a superb performance as the horrifyingly funny Lord Earl of Leete. Speaking coolly of more than a few unspeakable acts he has committed in order to maintain the integrity of the estate, the Earl declares his father "a nasty booby of a man who I hated ferociously," his mother "stupid," and his brother "decidedly...
...Wright's affectless paranoia ("I remember when I was in the womb; I was over on the right"). Michael Moore of Roger & Me reruns his rollicking contempt for General Motors (and for humanity) in Pets or Meat. The gem is A Sense of History, directed by Mike Leigh. Jim Broadbent, who wrote this deft monologue, plays a squire of Churchillian mien and Sweeney Todd meanness. Not since Browning's My Last Duchess has an aristocrat confessed his crimes with such self-lacerating...