If someone were to ask me what this film was about, I'd have to take a long pause and might consider running away because it feels like something that should be protected. I feel like I'd have to trust you enough to appreciate how emotional it was. It was that incredible and I had the opportunity to see this two days ago on Netflix.
I love British films and was happy to see the date this one was released. It was released in 1993, so it fit the criteria of old films I needed to see. It starred actors like Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Christopher Reeves, Hugh Grant, and James Fox--all very incredible actors.
This film felt like watching an English book play out. Infact it was adapted from the 1989 book written by Kazuo Ishiguro. The story itself was set in the 1930's. It is fictional, so this is only a fictional timeline and it tells the story of a very devout butler Stevens(played by Anthony Hopkins) who through his flashbacks and time in the current future show us the history of the activities in the Darlington Hall in a pre-war and post-war England. The activities in this home were very crucial as his former employee, the Earl of Darlington held conferences where representatives of world powers including Nazi Germany at the time came to meet.
It tells the story of how the Earl was persuaded and became a pawn to these powers to the detriment of many nations who ended up going to war. But this is not all. It tells the story of the man who served him, his butler who regarded his position with dignity and who never let his position and personal opinions get in the way of always being loyal to his employee. Butler Stevens was a man who showed very little of his personal feelings. He was able to run the household with efficiency even on trying days like the time his father who he'd employed as the under butler died on the day one of the conferences was held.
This is still not all, as there is another character the film draws our attention to. It is the housekeeper Stevens employs to run the Darlington hall. She's Emma Thompson and plays the role of Miss Keaton. In the beginning, there is some tension between both characters as Miss Keaton finds herself reprimanded on one occasion when she addresses Steven's father by his Christian name even though this is customary as he is essentially under her charge as under butler. He demands she refers to the man as Sir Stevens Snr. She obliges. In later scenes we see that Stevens proves to be man stuck in his ways and to routine. He found it hard to accept her well meaning criticism of his father who was forgetting tasks, and objects due to his age and therefore not doing his job properly. In all these underlying tension, he realizes how invaluable she is to him personally when she tends to his father just before he dies. She also does the last honor of closing his eyes on his death bed since Stevens had work to do. It's easy to see that she loves him.
I hoped that that somehow the stereotypical 'British and never showing emotions' character would somehow be broken and that we would have a good and romantic film to feel warm about. This is not exactly how this ends. There is unrequited love, not because there isn't love from the other party(Stevens), but because he never learns to express it. He bottles it all up even at the expense of losing the one he loves. Miss Keaton gets married and moves away for a decades to a new city. The Earl in his last days realizes his mistakes but by then he is too late with redeeming his reputation and his part in the war and the house is bought by the retired American congressman, played by Christopher Reeve who seemed to be the only one at the early conferences who knew that the 'truce' with the Germans was a price too heavy to pay for peace.
Stevens and Miss Keaton meet again one last time in the film and she tells him about how her life has been. He actually went seeking for her to come work in the newly bought Darlington Hall but she couldn't as her daughter was expecting a baby and she needed to stay close. We see that she had not been very happy in her marriage but time found a way of creating a comforting routine and helping love to grow. These final scenes were sad to watch because they both knew they would never see each other again.
Here was a man who had worked so much all his life, made work define him and lost out on love.
It was a thing of beauty and I rate it a 10/10.