Word: kenton
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Darlington Hall, is about to begin a road trip about England. This physical journey is from the start linked to a spiritual quest. The narrator of the book, Mr. Stevens, does not intend to wander aimlessly about the country; rather, he embarks on a pilgrimage, resolved to restore Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), the former housekeeper at Darlington Hall, to her erstwhile position. He hardly even concerns himself with the twenty years which have passed since she last was in residence at Darlington Hall, and in a series of rather Freudian slips, seems to continually forget that she is married...
...rather artificial. On occasion, when a scene from the past is introduced, an image appears in the center of the screen, and gradually assumes the foreground, almost emerging from behind the prior picture; at other times, a voice-over of a letter written either from Mr. Stevens to Miss Kenton or vice-versa, recalls a scene which then surfaces on the screen. In another misguided attempt to create unity, the American millionaire by whom Stevens is currently employed is conflated with another character, the American politician named Lewis. The congressman, played by Christopher Reeves, is endowed, in the film, with...
...touches the reader deeply without applying the pressure of sentiment. The story runs on parallel tracks: the years before World War II, when Stevens worked for his beloved Lord Darlington, an aristocrat who falls into an alliance with the Nazis; and the late '50s, when ! Stevens seeks out Miss Kenton in hopes she will return as housekeeper and, perhaps, something more. In his own ornate, unknowing words, Stevens condemns himself as the English version of a "good German": a man who disappointed Miss Kenton, his father (an aged butler), his country and himself in blinkered devotion to duty...
...Bridge. They have peppered the story with deft details that illuminate the cottage industry of running a lavish estate: snipped hedges, gleaming doorknobs, decapitated fowl, the Times pages freshly ironed each morning. And they have filled the house with a perfect cast: Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton; James Fox as Lord Darlington; Peter Vaughn as Stevens' father, the proud old retainer who will never say die -- even when he does. These characters, like those in The Age of Innocence, are all genteel anachronisms. They sin, in our eyes, by not daring to sin; they are poignant in their fidelity...
...comedy in his role, and the sadness, arise from this stillness. Before a hunt, Stevens holds a drinking cup for a horseman; the aristocrat takes no notice of his offer, and the butler takes no notice of the slight. His stillness may mask sexual fear: when Miss Kenton amiably approaches him, he freezes like a bruised virgin. The rest of the film Hopkins carries with a small gnomic smile that means a dozen things in a dozen scenes: gratitude, impatience, self-control. "I can say it's simple now," the actor acknowledges, "but it's taken years to distill...