The Return of the Soldier (1982)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Alan Bridges

Writers:

Rebecca West (novel)
Hugh Whitemore (writer)

Release Date:

14 February 1985 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Kitty Baldry (Julie Chirstie) is a haughty society queen with a tunneled view of life. Kitty's complacency is rocked when her husband...

Plot Keywords:

Amnesia | Beautiful Woman | Based On Novel | Independent Film

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Julie Christie	...	Kitty Baldry
Glenda Jackson	...	Margaret Grey
Ann-Margret	...	Jenny Baldry
Alan Bates	...	Chris Baldry
Ian Holm	...	Doctor Anderson
Frank Finlay	...	William Grey
Jeremy Kemp	...	Frank
Hilary Mason	...	Ward
John Sharp	...	Pearson
Elizabeth Edmonds	...	Emery
Valerie Whittington	...	Beatrice
Patsy Byrne	...	Mrs. Plummer
Amanda Grinling	...	Alexandra
Edward de Souza	...	Edward
Michael Cochrane	...	Stephen

MPAA:

Rated PG for some violent images and language.

Runtime:

USA:99 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:PG | Iceland:12 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11

Filming Locations:

Sussex, England, UK

Company:

Barry R. Cooper Productions

Trivia:

This is the first film in the U.K. to be rated with the new PG certificate

Dull, Dull, Dull

The cliché of the shell-shocked soldier home from the war is here given dull treatment. Pity a splendid cast, acting to the limits of their high talents, can't redeem 'The Return of the Soldier' from its stiff-collared inability to move the viewer to emotional involvement. Best moments, as another reviewer noted, come when Glenda Jackson is on screen; but even Jackson's crackling good cinematic power can't pull this film's chestnuts from its cold, never warmed hearth. Ann-Margret, she of sex-kitten repute and too often accused of lacking acting ability, finds her actual and rather profound abilities wasted here - despite her speaking with a nigh-flawless Middlesex accent. The hackneyed score, redolent of many lackluster TV miniseries' slathered-on saccharine emotionalism, is at irritating odds with the emotional remoteness of the script, blocking, and overbaked formalism of the direction; except for its score and corseted script and direction, 'The Return of the Soldier' has all the right bits but it fails to make them work together.