The daily remains

I've got another pair of movies on my DVR that are coming up on traditional cable in close proximity. This time, the first of them is The Remains of the Day, which shows up on TCM in the wee hours of June 2, at 2:00 AM. (In other words, that's still 11:00 PM on June 1 out on the west coast.)

The movie starts of some years after the end of World War II. Darlington Hall was one of those grand old manor houses that I'd normally compare to the ones you see in Merchant Ivory pictures, except that this time, it actually is a Merchant Ivory picture. The old owner, Lord Darlington, has died, and the estate is on the chopping block, at least until it's bought by Jack Lewis (Christopher Reeve), a retired US congressman who had visited once back in the 1930s; more on that later.

Lewis takes on the house's aging butler, Mr. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins), who was the butler to old Lord Darlington. And then Stevens gets a letter from Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), who was the housekeeper at Darlington Hall at the time of Lewis' visit. Kenton hasn't seen Stevens in yers, but still thinks about him; not that they're all older, she finds that she has much better memories of her time in service at Darlington Hall. With the place having been threated with destruction and that making the news, Kenton decides that now is the time to get in touch with Stevens again and reminisce about old times if he can get a few days off to visit her.

This, of course, is the cue for the flashback. We go back to the 1930s, and Darlington Hall is a consistently busy place with an army of servants led by butler Stevens. The place needs a new housekeeper, which is how Kenton gets hired on. But immediately she and Stevens begin to clash. Stevens seems to have spent his whole life in service, and is extremely good at what he does. But he's also extremely formal. Kenton isn't bad by any means; she's just a bit more modern in her approach to running the day-to-day managment of the home economics, as it were. She even goes so far as to refer to Stevens' elderly father, now reduced to being an under-butler, by his given name to distinguish him from the younger Stevens, something which horrifies the younger Stevens.

Anyhow, the whole house is in a flurry of activity because Lord Darlington (James Fox) is organizing a conference on trying to maintain peace with Germany. This is obviously well before World War II started in Europe, although I couldn't tell that any specific date was given for the first conference. (Later in the movie I think we do see a copy of The Times dated mid-October 1938.) It's clear that Darlington is on the side of opinion that thinks Germany and Hitler can be handled without having to go to war. Most of the guests at this conference share that view, with the exception of Lewis and a French representative, Dupont D'Ivry (Michael Lonsdale).

Kenton is horrified by all of this, and asks Stevens how this can go on. Stevens makes it clear, however, that his job is to serve, not to get involved in politics. He more or less continues to make it clear in a couple of scenes when the movie comes out of flashback while Stevens is on his way for the latter-day meeting with Kenton. It becomes clearer later in the picture just how much of an appeasenik Darlington really is, and that's going to have tragic consequences for him after the war.

Back in the 1930s, Kenton also finds herself developing some sort of feelings for Stevens. This is a bit of a problem because at Darlington Hall it's not necessary considered acceptable for servants to get involved in romantic relationships. But more complicated is the fact that while Stevens may be developing similar feelings for Kenton, he is exceedingly good at repressing such feelings. Eventually, Kenton can't take any more, and when she gets a marriage proposal from outside Darlington Hall, she accepts it.

As I mentioned early on, The Remains of the Day was directed by James Ivory and produced by his and Ismail Merchant's production company. This means you know you're going to get exception production values of interwar England, along with a fine script. You also get excellent acting performances, which really isn't much of a surprise considering the cast involved here. The script by Merchant and Ivory's collaborator Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, is also quite good. If the movie has one flaw, however, it's that it feels like it runs a bit slow, and the pace feels like it gets even slower in the second half of the movie. It's "only" 134 minutes which includes the end credits, and that's a fair bit shorter than a lot of prestige movies today, but at times there's a sense of are they ever going to get to the action.

Still, The Remains of the Day is a fine movie, and definitely one not to be missed.