The Remains of the Day

Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, ‘The Remains of the Day' is a 1993 drama film directed by James Ivory.  The movie stars Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, James Fox and Christopher Reeve.

The movie takes place in 1950s post World War II Britain, and it captures the story of the head butler James Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) at Darlington Hall who sacrificed his whole life serving his master. It’s later in his life that he realizes this philosophy of loyalty and service to his master had taken away a bigger part of his life. The female protagonist of the movie is Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), who had been the house keeper at Darlington Hall for some years. The movie is presented in the form of flashbacks and cuts back and forth between 1930s; the days when Miss Kenton worked at Darlington Hall and 1950s; in the present, Mr. Stevens’ journey to visit her.

Despite being nominated for eight Academy Awards and winning none of them, this movie as I consider is a brilliant masterpiece. Most of its credit can be attributed to the masterful cast of the movie.

If we consider the plot of the movie, we can summarize the whole plot in few lines, but the story it brings out is vast. The task of a plot should be to deliver some facts of the story to the audience, because if the plot represents all the facts in the story, on an intellectual level it would be a dud. Accordingly the plot may not always bring out everything directly; there would be some thinking for the audience to do as well. In this movie too, some things are left ambiguous about Mr. Stevens. His character is very hard to comprehend to the audience as well as the characters in the movie.

Among other themes, this movie is about repressed emotions. Hence a major responsibility lies on the actors to convey this to the audience. This is where the acting of Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson come in. How they portray the conflicts between Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton and how they bring out the fact that both of them have feelings for each other are subtle and impeccable. The most poignant part is that they can’t do anything about it, except to repress their feelings.

If we put all other good things about this movie aside and just consider the acting, this movie is worth watching just for its acting itself. Anthony Hopkins’ performance in this movie is in par and even beyond his Academy Award winning performance in the 1991 movie ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. Every twitch of his eye, every puff of smoke he blows, every hand gesture contributes to this awesomeness.

One thing about this movie is that, even though the story in the movie moves fast, the plot moves rather slowly. If you feel sleepy please do not start watching the movie, or you will miss the subtleness of it. 

If there’s a movie with a heartbreaking, beautiful story and amazing acting; this is it.