Amazon.com Essentials:
Writer Harold Pinter (Betrayal) and
director Karel Reisz (Isadora) take an
experimental spin with John Fowles's magnificent novel set in
Victorian England, and come up with something puzzling. Jeremy Irons
and Meryl Streep play the forbidden lovers in Fowles's story, but in a
parallel story line they also play contemporary actors performing
those characters in a movie production and having an affair of their
own during off-hours. Got that? Considering that Fowles himself
presents alternative endings in his novel, something equally eccentric
is called for here. But little is accomplished by this intertwining of
a fictional past and present, and the opportunity to do justice to a
great story is lost. On the plus side, Irons and Streep are instantly
striking as a natural couple on screen, and their presence makes
watching this film easy enough despite the larger problems. --Tom
Keogh
