A Handful of Dust (1988)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Charles Sturridge

Writers:

Derek Granger (writer)
Charles Sturridge (writer)

Release Date:

24 June 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

The wife's affair and a death in the family hasten the demise of an upper-class English marriage.

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel | Independent Film

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

James Wilby	...	Tony Last
Kristin Scott Thomas	...	Brenda Last
Rupert Graves	...	John Beaver
Anjelica Huston	...	Mrs. Rattery
Judi Dench	...	Mrs. Beaver
Alec Guinness	...	Mr. Todd
Richard Beale	...	Ben
Jackson Kyle	...	John Andrew
Norman Lumsden	...	Ambrose
Jeanne Watts	...	Nanny
Kate Percival	...	Miss Ripon
Richard Leech	...	Doctor
Roger Milner	...	Vicar
Tristram Jellinek	...	Richard Last
Pip Torrens	...	Jock

Runtime:

USA:118 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:PG | Argentina:Atp | Sweden:Btl | USA:PG (certificate #28951) | West Germany:6 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK

Company:

Compact Yellowbill

Trivia:

The final film of Richard Leech.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Benchwarmers (2006)

not quite, but close enough

I remember seeing this adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel with a friend who shuddered at the nastiness of the characters. I replied that the novel was far nastier, and so it is: most of Waugh's fine dark wit is missing, along with such wonderful eccentrics as Vicar Tendril, who still preaches to his early 1930s congregation sermons delivered in distant provinces of the not-quite-twilit Empire, or Jenny Abdul-Akbar, the mostly self-styled Princess/adventuress who flings herself at Tony as part of a compensation scheme by Brenda and her friends (the loss of this sequence, and the truncation of the divorce-evidence expedition to Brighton, are two great losses). Even those remaining are not quite as awful, especially the novel's infamous monster children. And Tony and Jock's night on the tiles at the whorehouse has vanished. So what's left? A tale of a fundamentally nice, somewhat stuffy young man of the old landed gentry, whose very modern urban wife in a moment of boredom falls into an affair with a young man on the London party circuit. The film opts for subtlety more than satire or soap opera, and so the characters are appealing and their emotional responses more sympathetic. The look of the film blends a careful attention to realistic period detail with a golden mist of nostalgia or an autumnal mist of regret. The acting is naturalistic more than arch, which also shifts the focus away from satire, so that the film isn't nearly as funny (in the horrid laughter sense) as the book (only Stephen Fry, bless him, as Brenda's brother Reggie, seems close to Waugh's vision). Some clever crosscutting and musical motifs do suggest the parallels between Tony's South American sojourn, which dooms him, and his equally doomed illusions concerning Hetton, his English estate. But nothing really suggests his complete deludedness concerning the value of Hetton, or the utter worthlessness of both Brenda and her lover John Beaver: as portrayed here, everyone is at least partly likeable. As I read the novel now, I'm convinced Tony's best friend Jock is biding his time through all of this knowing he'll eventually get Brenda on the rebound; here, Brenda's marriage to Jock seems purely economic in motivation. Still, I like this film, for reasons quite other than why I adore the novel: this version is a compelling glimpse into the ever-complex relationship between the individual and society. And there are some wonderful performances: James Wilby and Kristin Scott Thomas are both attractive and convincing as Tony and Brenda Last; Pip Torrens is marvellously subtle as Jock, and there are notable cameos by Judi Dench (as Brenda's lover's mother), Angelica Huston (as Jock's enigmatic American girlfriend), and Alec Guinness as Mr. Todd ("tod" is the German word for death), Tony's saviour in the jungle and the source of his doom.