The Winter Guest

source: The Winter Guest

This started out very bleak... and slow... but once the women leave the room, things start moving and the gist of what appears to be life and how they live it hits you in the head. It's very intellectually done - the grief, lads learning about their sexuality and the curiosity seekers. I was worried that the older lady (Law) would be a menace to her daughter (Thompson), since the younger was dealing with the grief of her husband. She wasn't really. The overall curiosity of death was prevalent, with the older ladies who attended funeral after funeral. Some people deal with death different. I found that very interesting. The boys were such boys - and I'm glad the characters met eventually. It's also well life moved on for the widow. It had a very film noir feel to it. This is not a huge box office show, but somehow I get the feeling everyone can get something from it, no matter the person. It's endearing and a real film about real life. Rickman did a good job for a first time director. I wish he would do more because he has a rich life to tell. Great movie, great for the older kids and parents.

I loved the cinematography in this movie! The story, however, is utterly boring. There's no catalyst, no actual order of events. Emma Thompson is one of the sexiest, most brilliant stars of her time. Her real life mother, Phyllida Law, was also incredible. Overall, however, there was no drive in the film. Will she go to Australia or not? Do we honestly care? No. Even great actors can't save badly written scripts. There wasn't anything really here... Sorry Alan... Sorry Emma... Sorry cast. You're all beautiful and incredible but you need something to do. Life or death. That makes a good movie. And a decent resolution would've been nice.

The Winter Guest (1997) This has the depth and studious pace and multi-pronged construction of a good play. Which it once was. And like many plays turned to cinema, this carries along some first rate dramatic acting, namely by Emma Thompson and her real life mother, Phyllida Law, playing mother and daughter. As a small twist, the playwright, Sharman Macdonald, is mother to someone else we know, actress Keira Knightley. The scene is a forlorn village in the dead of winter on a Scottish coast. We are shown the first turn of innocent love, a pair of boys playing with the edges of right and wrong, a pair of old woman touching on what death looks like if not felt, and the mother daughter pair who deal with a little of everything. Including photography, which serves as a classic artist's release, a way to take you out of your head and into what is out there in front of you. Don't expect action, or even any great surprising turn of events. At first I went along with the slow, beautiful pace thinking it was all building to something. And I suppose it was, after all, but nothing that will shock you. It's better than that, and more real, and more touching. The movie and play are both quite good, lacking the finesse and originality of the most amazing works around us, drawing even from Ibsen or Chekhov in the realism and power of very ordinary people in faraway places. The acting is tremendous within the cool dry restraints of the plot, and in fact might make more the the play than is there. If you like a bit of reality without sensation, but just tenderness and meaning, this will work.

Don't know about you, but i just loved the movie. It was very interesting to discover Alan Rickman as a Director - and i wasn't disappointed with the result in any way. First, the 'structure' of the movie: tiny episodes from every plot line, their gentle crossing with each other. Then, these plot lines themselves - i found them pictured with more subtlety and tenderness than i had believed possible. What struck me most was the teenage boys' behaviour. Or, to be more precise, the abrupt change in both of them - from cigarettes, swearing, and all this genitals-related speech to the sudden gentle manner when they find and adopt baby kittens. Is it how we grow up? Does it only take a helpless creature, who has nothing and no-one to depend on, to step towards maturity? Frances' (Emma Thompson) drama about her lost husband expresses silent grief, which is more felt than seen from her performance. Her mother Elspeth (Phyllida Law), adds even more emotion to it. While usual movies concentrate on showing the 'action', here the very sight of Elspeth's slow journey towards her daughter's house speaks volumes. What can we learn from her? That old age cannot be fought? Or, that the journey to another soul is long and winding? or both?.. The other two plot lines are magnificent as well. I won't delve into every single moment that made me shudder, for everyone finds their own special episodes. What i can say is that the movie didn't leave any dazzling impressions. No vivid flashbacks. Only a feeling of winter silently creeping into our souls and staying there for long. Not the freezing, icy season. But the feeling of a thick blanket of snow. The thrill you get when you hear snow crackling beneath your feet. The strange yet peaceful emotion when witnessing the earth sleep. Who is the winter guest? Alan Rickman has been asked about it in some interview. He said he didn't know it himself. It might be death, however. Who is the winter guest for every one of us? Death, which comes alien and unexpected. Winter, bringing sleep and slumber into our ordinary lives. Grief, which covers our hearts with ice. Life, which stirs beneath the layers of ice and snow. Different for each and every one. The movie is leaving much space to insert your own emotions and feelings. To accept your own, personal winter guest. I have learned to accept mine.

This story is a pastiche of four intercut plotlines * Mother and daughter conflict * Boy-meets-girl story * Two adolescent boys grapple with puberty * Two old pensioners confronting death Any two of these would have been plenty, there is not that much connection between the plotlines. It also suffers from an agonizingly slow start.

You sit down to watch The Winter Guest. The scene opens. You see Emma Thompson. You start waiting for things to happen, for something to pull you in. You wait, and wait, and wait . . . . Unfortunately, The Winter Guest never does anything. Four story lines about four pairs of characters meander along, never coming together plotwise or themewise. Perhaps the director, Alan Rickman, assumed things would just naturally fall together; however, it takes a guiding hand to make things happen. Nothing ever does in this misguided effort.

Fifteen minutes into this movie, I felt I wouldn't see it through. Emma Thompson was the reason I was looking at it in the first place. I had read in the TV guide there were four scenarios taking place in a bleak Scottish village. It certainly was very bleak. Not too much scenery to be seen, other than the bare street with houses running along either side; rocks covered in snow beside the sea wall; a frozen sea, and a lighthouse. That was it! However, it was the acting of the whole cast that kept me watching this strange movie. Certainly not a movie to watch when you need to be cheered up. It was interesting to see Emma Thompson acting with her real mother Phyllida Law, who was born in Glasgow,Scotland.I guess this is why Emma's accent was very authentic. She does have an English accent in real life. The actual movie itself is a disaster. Both Emma and her mother played their parts well. The two young boys were incredible, and no doubt will be famous in the film world.The two teenagers were also excellent in their parts. Also the two old ladies dressed in black, but for the life of me, I don't know where they fitted in here. Three of the scenarios are eventually linked with Emma and her mother meeting one of the boys on the beach, and Emma's son and the teenage girl, but not the two old ladies ... maybe in the beginning when Emma's mother is looking at them through a telescope and pulling them to pieces, but that's it! Strangest thing of all I found aboutthis movie was one of the young boys holding a kitten and walking on to the ice close to the end of the movie, and then being followed by his friend, and this is how it ends (?). Are we supposed to make up our own ending. The first boy keeps on walking until he can't be seen in the mist any more. Then his friend does the same ..into the mist and he's gone. I have to tell myself they walked back again. They were two lively kids talking about everyday day life, not about ending theirs. Yes, they definitely walked back to terra firma or I'll never sleep tonight. :-)

"The Winter Guest" is a beautifully filmed nothing of a story. As though on a carousel, the camera revolves around four pairs of people in an icy rural coastal place in Scotland, providing glimpses into their lives as it passes by in near real time. The absence of a story begs the question, why would one watch this film when they could be watching more interesting events simply by looking at their own lives? The answer is probably "art for art's sake".

This is strictly an art film: talky, dull, complex, uninteresting. The acting is good but one wishes for more of a story (there are four going on at once, none of them interesting). Emma Thompson appears topless for one second. The camera work is good. All in all, a waste of talent and one's time.