BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Robert J. Maxwell Poor Madeleine Potter. She's a faith healer's daughter in 1875 Boston, a speaker for the woman's movement, and everybody wants a piece of her. Her father, Wesley Addy, puts her on display at meetings and rakes in the shekels. Vanessa Redgrave, ardent feminist avant la lettre, wants to use her as a poster girl and also, maybe, bestow on her in muted form some of the love that dare not speak its name. The manly, mustachioed Christopher Reeve wants her for his own and would like to run away with her and turn her into a much-loved icon of delicate femininity who has nothing to say.I had the advantage of never having read the novel so I can only comment on the raw film. It's a typical Merchant-Ivory movie -- tasteful, lavish, accurate to the period, and marvelously photographed. Some of the images at the Massachusetts beach are Winslow Homerish.The plot is really too complicated and too subtle to describe in detail. It boils down to whether Madeleine Potter wants to represent a social cause or become a Southerner's housewife. It sounds worse than it is. The viewer is tempted to jump in with both feet because sexism is currently a social issue. That would turn Reeve into the domineering villain and Redgrave into a paragon of virtue.I saw it less as a question of right and wrong than a clash of the two most prominent cultures on which the country was founded. The intolerant, profoundly religious, fiercely democratic New England Yankees and the aristocratic, gentile, highly stratified, caste-ridden, proud society of Southern planters. We've been fighting this same civil war since the Puritans landed in the Bay Colony and the cavaliers settled in Virginia.Of course it's not THAT simple. Nothing is really simple. Reeve evidently loves Potter to distraction. Yet he's pushy too. Pushy even by the standards of today. He's a Mississippian, a veteran, a lawyer, who has migrated to New York. But he's not successful. His essays are routinely rejected by publishers who tell him his views are three hundred years out of date. We can imagine what those views are. When some elderly lady remarks that her experiences in the South weren't very pleasant, Reeve replies that it may have had something to do with her attempt to improve the lot of the "Nigra". And when Potter takes him to visit a hall at Harvard lined with the names of the Union dead, watch Reeve's expression.Best performances aren't by the two lovers, but by Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Tandy, Linda Hunt, and an ashen Wesley Addy with a crazy fright wig. Nancy Marchand is fine too. She was my co-star in the magnificent art house piece, "From the Hip." I helped the kid get over the rough spots in her performance.Anyway, the film didn't strike me as so bad as some reviewers have made it out to be. It flows smoothly along. It would have flowed more smoothly if Reeve had been booted out of the picture half-way through, but then there would have been no picture.

toast-15 I'm giving this a 10 because, 1) I think it's a good film and 2) some have not been fair with the rating of this film so I'm balancing it out.I love this film. Decades ago, I used to read a lot of Henry James. The funny thing about a James novel is that it always leaves you scratching your head. James' brother, William, was a psychiatrist I believe, and it seems that Henry may have been using a little psychological gamesmanship while crafting many of his intriguing characters. For example, The Turn of the Screw is a book that rather famously has an open ending: one chilling, the other supernatural. Which will the reader choose? I bring this up because "The Bostonians" is also up to interpretation and this is where the actors, especially Reeve, give us another dimensional glimpse into their characters. On the one hand, this film can be taken as a love story, and a good one at that. On the other hand, however, one has to wonder if Reeve's character truly loves his target or is he just trying to "possess" her and therefore, keep her from becoming the vessel of all that he despises. Is she a conquest or a lover? Basil Ransom, Reeve's character, has just come from the South in a post civil war era. All that he knew as a child growing up in Mississippi is gone. He visits his cousin Olive played by Redgrave, at her request, only to find that she, unlike himself, is still very well off, her life is remarkably unchanged since the war's end. But she immediately comes to despise him for his beliefs. She refers to him as the "Enemy". Even though the Civil War is over, she is thinking of another kind of war, the war of the suffragettes. And in true James fashion, even this is complicated by Olive's perceived homosexuality as opposed to Reeve's clearly hetero thoughts and ideas. She sees Ransom as a threat to her own happiness with Verena (Potter). So there are layers of motive here for Olive's hatred of Ransom. Ransom's beliefs, however, are what he clings to relentlessly, purposefully, deliberately, because they are all he has left of his bygone era. His history, his lifestyle, has died. He has already suffered the loss of one war, will he see this new challenge as an opportunity to finally win? Indeed, toward the end, as he puts the black cloak over Verena's head, the look on his face could be that of a warrior admiring, and protecting a hard fought prized possession. Or is it the look of tenderness as that of a lover beaming at his cherished bride? You decide. That's what James would have wanted.Oddly, Verena becomes, not a human with her own ideas but rather a vessel for other people to live out their own thoughts and ideas. It is ironic because she speaks publicly and passionately about the exact opposite yet everyone that surrounds her, from her parents to a local reporter, to Olive and Ransom... they all want something from Verena, they are all using her but she seems oblivious to it all. In the end she finally seems to make a decision purely for herself but again, perhaps not.An interesting scene plays out between two characters played by Nancy Marchant and Redgrave, they seem to be brokering the future of Verena but in the end, Olive (Redgrave) decides to hide away with her. The ending could have been quite different but selfishness apparently won out. Here again, motives are not exactly all that they seem. They both agree they are for equal rights of women yet the dialogue is all about using Verena as a chess piece to further their own goals. It is a masterpiece of irony and hypocrisy.Linda Hunt as the already liberated female doctor who does not particularly care for speeches and the "movement" seems to inhabit the role and without a word seems to highlight the hypocrisy of others. She is remarkably believable and seems to breeze through as if she really does live in the time and place set in the movie. Her character is already liberated but doesn't see the need to preach it from the pulpit, she just lives it. She's very happy, without a man, with her own medical career, but no one seems to notice except Ransom. Ransom gets along very well with her and they immediately become friends.Christopher Reeve, Vanessa Redgrave, Linda Hunt, and Nancy Marchant did this Henry James novel proud; and that's no easy task.

chaplinj@hotmail.com Well meant production from the magical Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala team. This one was made before they hit their stride, however. The first mistake was casting Christopher Reeve in the lead. He always looks like he's acting, there's nothing natural about it. His performance here is in par with cheap 70's pornography acting. He is supposedly classically trained as an actor, but I guess anyone who pays for and attends acting classes can say the same. Some have it and some don't, he doesn't. The costumes, art direction and sets are all lavish and appealing. The dialog is far too updated to make one believe that it's taking place in another century, it's almost like a high school production in that aspect. Redgrave and Marchand both give good performances, nothing remarkable at all, but acceptable. The rest of the cast is a mish-mash of mostly b-listers. Scriptwriter Jhabvala has proved herself time and again to be quite the artist, but the script here is flat. Perhaps the book it was based on is this dull and unconvincing. I was left simply unaffected by any message they were trying to convey about the period. I'm a fanatic when it comes to Merchant/Ivory pictures, but this one just didn't cut it. It seems they were more in their element with their amazing and opulent European productions. The quality of their American films seems to be quite cheap in production in comparison. I'm simply left wondering what a masterpiece this could have been had it been set in and filmed in England. If you're an Ivory/Merchant fan, stick with their better titles "A Room With A View" & "Sense And Sensibility", they both surpass this effort by leagues.

Cristi_Ciopron I've always been interested in the James adaptations,and in the Ivory films.The Bostonians ' first half's calligraphy and distinguished Callophily is pleasing,then the groundless length becomes oppressive,annoying and exasperating,so that finally I loathed this movie.That's no way to treat the viewers!The unjustified and intolerable length does not serve the narration,not the atmosphere,nor the characters' development. Wasted footage!I began by liking The Bostonians ,I finished by loathing this movie that goes nowhere.(James was quite loquacious and blabbed with a senile joy,and the movie gets also very talkative.)Reeve smiles intelligently and even ironically from time to time,which kind of contradicts his supposed plainness.He acts somehow beside the point,but I guess the idea of introducing him as a tom cat with transient smiles was meant to cheer a little this overlong H. James adaptation,and as a needed antidote for the crabby Mrs. Redgrave.Reeve is almost brave in feigning some real interest for Madeleine Potter's character.The two actresses I liked are:(1)Nancy New (as "Olive Chancellor"'s far more attractive sister);(2)Nancy Marchand.Mrs. Redgrave is a broody,headstrong,crabbed,exalted and poisonous,felonious damsel ,as interesting as Lenin's books.As a matter of fact,this poor woman looks rather feeble-minded.One hopes in vain she'll have her fling with "Verena Tarrant".She is here as cranky as ever.Mrs. Madeleine Potter is very uninteresting, insipid,and as fascinating as a sausage.Towards the final of The Bostonians ,I swore at the director, at the scriptwriter and at the entire cast.I would seize Ivory by his ears and force him watch many Bruce Lee movies and many Jackie Chan movies,so much that he gets able to make at least something that well-thought.The whole plot is utterly nauseating.The characters are as viscid as the mollusks.This makes the movie a morass.This is a show,don't ask me to judge it as if it were a novel.I'm talking about Ivory's show,not about James' novel.The most annoying fact is that Mrs. Redgrave seems to enjoy her role;this is unacceptable!(But it is also obvious that no member of the cast is able to get what this show is about.This may serve,though in a paradoxical way,as a justification for them all!These people (Reeve, Nancy Marchand and Nancy New) performed hoping there is a meaning they are not yet able to comprehend.)