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The Age of Commercialism

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The first must-see film of the year.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is a film which centres on its main character Tony Webster, played with great subtlety by Broadbent, uncovering some of the unintended effects of earlier actions, long forgotten and submerged under a conventional and safe life. A letter out of the blue from a lawyer reconnects the intelligent but somewhat oblivious Tony to both people and events from his past. In the film, like the novel, this exploration is partly worked out in conversations with his knowing and somewhat arch ex-wife superbly portrayed by Harriet Walter. Even though the memories are Tony's, his wife always seems to be one step ahead in understanding their deeper significance and and recognising her ex-husband's obtuseness and self-deceptions. Through the discussions and flasbacks, a painful affair is slowly uncovered involving Tony's erratic first girlfriend and his best friend from school, and the flurry of interactions between all those involved at the time have powerful and lasting consequences, most of which were hardly foreseen by Tony, who seems to have settled for a lack of curiosity through the long years that followed. It is the unravelling of those consequences and the affect that has on the main character that soon becomes the centrepiece of the film. In fine humanist fashion, Tony is dragged through slow realisation, regret, humiliation, introspection, and an honest reappraisal of what he has become, to finally reach a level of resolution that is both persuasive and heartening. The film and the performances manage to avoid any hint of sentimentality and self-congratulatory smugness in a completely satisfying way. An excellent film!

Not one person in this film had any sense of courtesy except the main character. He continually tries to be polite and everyone is rude to him. It was quite frustrating that he would not throw a comment back at them, his ex-wife, daughter, professor, ex-girlfriend, not one polite conversation that I saw. But then again I lost interest in the film.

Forget the 'reviews' which claim it's some sort of philosophical treatise. It's not!It's an interesting story told by an old man about something that happened in his past. New light is shed on the information he thought he understood and the events are resolved. QED.The actors and actresses are great. I love Jim Broadbent and it's worth watching for him alone, and they do a great job with the script.I haven't read the book - nor will I - but I was frustrated rather than 'held in suspense' by the continual delaying tactics in revealing bits of the plot. The only possible reason is an attempt to add some suspense to the proceedings which soon become boring, not suspenseful. Whether this is the book's fault or the screenwriter's I don't know but, whatever, it's poorly done.There is a sort of side 'event' (rather than sub-plot) which has little to do with the main story and, unless, you want aggrandise things to an unreasonable level, has no bearing at all on the take-away. I assume it's in the book. A more seasoned scriptwriter would have taken it out altogether.Ultimately, worth watching if you like quintessential English upper-middle class dramas and the actors involved but it's poorly plotted.

Excellent movie. The real drama, utilising all rules of this art!