Plenty (1985) | Meryl Streep, Sam Neill | Underrated film from underrated director Schepisi

Plenty (1985) | Meryl Streep, Sam Neill | Most underrated Meryl Streep film

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Plenty (1985)

	Plenty (1985) Meryl Streep, Sam Neill Republic Pictures, 1998 average customer review:based on 21 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Underrated film from underrated director Schepisi

Yes, it was fairly well-reviewed when it came out, but it's more than merely a "good" film. I thought it was good the first time I saw it. By the third time I watched it I thought it was great and by the fifth viewing I was awestruck. Plenty is rich, subtle, low key and--for many (not me)--hard to warm up to, because none of the characters is especially lovable, at least not for very long. This isn't a film where you "root" for anyone. It's more of a film where you watch, observe, live and breathe in the times, amazed that, even though you've never lived in this period, after this movie you feel as though you have.

In the excellent director's interview that comes with this version of the DVD (but not the other, less expensive one, so be sure to fork out the extra bucks and get this issue) Fred Schepisi explains that this is a film about memory. What he modestly doesn't say is he conveys the theme of memory superbly well through his expert direction, with music and lighting and set cues that make us feel as though we are living life with Susan, and that, oddly, we have lived it along with her before. We feel her nostalgia for France when she does. We feel her claustrophobia in her suburban London existence. Plenty is a film of rich textures, one we can almost smell and taste as we watch it.

Its themes are rich and multi-faceted. Plenty is about idealism and disillusionment, about hypocracy and naivete, about promises never fulfilled, or that may be unfulfillable. The heroic "good" war, the post-war rise of diplomacy to replace confrontation, the hypocracy of suburban middle-class morality, the belief that the good guys can do anything, so long as they do it in a civil manner, these are just some of the themes of Plenty. And watching it, I was somehow reminded strongly of our present times in many ways. We (Americans) are in a rampant consumer culture, drenched in middle-class morality as we rationalize everything from war with Iraq to plundering oil for our SUVs. We feel we can get away with questionable actions of foreign policy if we go about it diplomatically, because we're "the good guys." (John Gielgud's speech to Charles Dance as he explains his disenchantment over Suez, where he says he would have gone along with whatever the government cooked up so long as they would have been honest to him about it, keeps ringing in my ears.) Most of us don't stop to examine our lives, and the fact that at one point Susan goes into advertising ("I don't expect it to stretch me, but maybe it'll be good fun.") made me howl. The film also deals with class distinctions and rising through the social classes beautifully. Susan goes from working girl to upwardly mobile woman to diplomat's wealthy wife. Her best pal Alice does all this as well, basically following on Susan's coattails in the beginning, but although she starts out rather immature she eventually grows beyond Susan, though she probably would not realize that herself. It's odd that in a novel, movie or play the secondary character grows beyond the hero(ine), but that is just one twist that makes this work fascinating.

It all happens rather subtly. There is no pontificating, no "morals," no dissolves and title cards that say things like "Eight years later." No one explains the changes that happen to these characters slowly, over two decades, and they do not seem to notice many of them themselves. Schepisi counts on the viewer to figure it all out. Maybe that's one reason the film has never done well, whether in the theaters, on the critics' lists, or on home video. Another is it's not a very "American" movie. Aside from the fact that it deals with Europe and its culture and history, of which most Americans are woefully ignorant, it does not have a single hero or heroine, a single point of view, and a feel-good ending, three essential ingredients for almost any American movie (at least of the last 25 years). As I often find myself saying when it comes to movies I truly love, I'm amazed this got made at all.

Streep plays the role of Susan very well (of course), but with perhaps just a bit more restaint and calculation than I would have liked. We never really see a slow build, an evolution, of her Susan, but instead flashes of sanity as she battles to live in a too-sedate and plastic world. More impressive are the other characters. Charles Dance is sympathetic (the only somewhat sympathetic character in the movie) as Susan's long-suffering husband Raymond, someone in love with her and yet destinted to never understand her. Tracey Ullman impressively holds her own in every scene with Streep as best friend Alice. And the eclectic casting of the supporting characters--John Gielgud, Ian McKellen, Sam Neill, Sting (!) and Burt Kwok (Kato in the Inspector Clouseau movies, who here has what may be the best line, "These 'Gyps need whipping!")--works brilliantly. Schepisi deserves credit for not turning this into a "mere" Masterpiece Theater costume drama, which could have easily happened if he'd just plundered the cast of BBC dramas for his actors.

Fred Schepisi is one of our more underrated directors. (I say "ours," even though he's from Australia.) And this may be his greatest film. I urge anyone who's curious, though, to watch it several times before making a judgment. As one of the reviewers below said, the film's greatness doesn't hit you the first time. If you give it time, though, it will eventually sweep you away. I just wish some of those critics would give it a few more spins in their DVD players, so that they'd *really* be impressed. (I guess for the record I should mention picture quality, sound, etc., all sharp, crisp, clear, blah blah blah. Widescreen 16x9 format, enhanced for supersized TVs, and all that.)

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Most underrated Meryl Streep film

This movie is a forgotten treasure and deserves to be revived since it shows magic Meryl at her best in the prime of her craft.
The movie is based on a David Hare play and has been recently restaged in London with Cate Blanchett( arguably the most convincing aspirant to Streep's throne) in the lead.
Susan Traherne works in the French resistance during the war and although her life is fraught with danger, deprivation and chance encounters it gives her an edginess and zest for life she can never find in her later life. In post war Britain she stumbles through a string of uninspired careers, a bittersweet stab at motherhood, a friendship with a sassy Bohemian( a role Tracy Ullman was born to play) and eventually a marriage to a safe and starched politician that comes across as a personal suicide note while remaining among the living. The film nicely balances the quests of how much excitement people can handle and how much boredom can discombobulate a once inquiring mind. It's nothing less than a somber ode to the idealism of youth, its sour awakening and the understanding that success is in the eye of the beholder and no cotton can shield us from our drive to be individuals regardless of the cost to comfort and convention.

for more information click here

Most underrated Meryl Streep film

This movie is a forgotten treasure and deserves to be revived since it shows magic Meryl at her best in the prime of her craft. the movie is based on a David Hare play and has been recently restaged in London with Cate Blanchett(arguably the most convincing aspirant to Streep's throne) in the lead.
Susan Traherne works in the French resistance during the war and although her life is fraught with danger, deprivation and chance encounters it gives her an edginess and zest for life she can never find later in her life. In post war Britain she stumbles through a string of uninspired careers, a bittersweet stab at motherhood, a friendship with a sassy bohemian( Tracy Ullman was born to play that part) and eventually a marriage to a safe and starched politician that comes across as a personal suicide note while remaining among the living. The film nicely balances the quests of how much excitement people can handle and how much boredom can discombobulate a once inquiring mind. It's nothing less than a somber ode to the idealism of youth, its sour awakening and the understanding that success is in the eye of the beholder and no cotton can shield us from our drive to be individuals regardless of the cost to comfort and convention.

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The Effects Of War

This film offers a view of the effects of war that is not often explored. It suggests that for some people, the intensity, fear, and hope of wartime living, the subterfuge of fighting, and an adherence to ideals that inform one's actions can create an unusually vivid experience that makes subsequent, peacetime existence seem dull.

"Plenty" gives us a portrait of one woman who was involved on the periphery of combat and the devastation of attacks on her native land. Susan Traherne's post-war life is calm in comparison. But placidity is not what she finds satisfying anymore. Having participated in such extreme conditions, she finds peacetime hollow. The rebuilding of society fails to meet the ideals of the fighters she had joined, furthering her sense of alienation. She drifts amidst work and play that seem trivial in light of the intense events that preceded them. The bourgeois and privileged life she eventually joins through marriage seems complacent and hypocritical. She finds a glimmer of what she seeks to recapture in the bohemian, countercultural friend she made at work. Her rambling attempts to decide between a life that is thrillingly gratifying or one safer but paler make for a story that is interesting for audiences interested in character studies or philosophical inquiries.

In addition to an intriguing premise, the execution of the movie is wonderful. The pacing of the narrative, the use of silence and certain sense memories such as sounds, the use of setting, and the acting by the ensemble are outstanding. The flashbacks and sudden shifts in time frame add complexity and poignancy to the tale. The film makes me regret not having seen the original play, which starred the powerhouse actress Kate Nelligan.

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Plenty - as it should be seen

Being the huge Meryl Streep fan that I am, I've seen this film over 20 times, but never before in its original widescreen format. So I was pleasantly surprised to realise how much I had missed when I had first watched it in the full-screen format. I think it's going to take me a further 20 viewings to take it all it!

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5

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