Word: soberly
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...Sober. Earnest. Respectful. And, alas, excruciating. There is really little more to be said about Joseph Strick's adaptation of the James Joyce masterpiece. The novel may be this century's greatest restatement of that endlessly fascinating story of a youth in revolt against family, society, culture, religion-everything that formed him. But of course it is not the familiar tale Joyce told, but the manner in which he told it, that compels one's attention and awe. And there is simply no way to construct a film that can contain more than a suggestion...
There is a sober subtext to this nonsense. The film preaches against the excesses of self-absorption that are the wages of modern celebrity. It also makes a case against the cult of youth by demonstrating the grotesque lengths to which some people will go to try to cheat mortality. Since only a few thousand of the world's most privileged people are in a position to cope with these problems, it is hard to work up much moral indignation about them...
...attacks are only fanning suspicions and dividing the nation instead of providing sober answers to the questions that bedevil the public. Among them...
...Thatcher is uncomfortably aware that many find her tones grating and self-righteous, and that her slick and expensive American-style campaign was compared unfavorably with the traditional and sober approach of Jim Callaghan--who disdained, as he put it, "to be packaged like cornflakes." She also knows that in a one-on-one, Presidential-style contest with Callaghan, she might have lost hands down: the same polls which showed large Tory leads also put Callaghan way ahead in personal popularity. The striking fact, however, is that with a 75 per cent voter turnout, and a national voting swing...
...leave a lot of things up my sleeve. But my aim is to avoid the mistakes of other countries who say they will be a jet flying, but only go up and soon crash. You just watch us: we shall teach the rest of the world how to be sober about independence...