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Truly Dreadful Film

People are voting emotionally.

best movie i've ever seen.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Women of Boston committed to the suffrage movement on shown in a picture which resembles the Seneca Falls Convention Meeting of Women in 1848 with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others participating. The film belonged in 1848. It is thoroughly boring.The late Chris Reeves was horribly miscast as a Mississippi attorney up from the south who falls in love with one of the suffragettes. In the way, is the dedicated leader, played by Vanessa Redgrave, who wants the woman to remain in the movement. Anyone who marries from her thinking can't be totally committed. The fact that there is a lesbian situation going on between the two women supposedly doesn't enter into her thinking. Right.Co-star Jessica Tandy is made up to look like Cady Stanton.The ending where Redgrave makes her passioned speech for the movement after the other lady runs off with Reeve is too late. When the latter didn't speak, most of the people left the auditorium. This is what movie viewers should have done as well.

The other reviews really don't get that this is a very subtle expose on gay relationships in this era. Was Henry James gay? Did he live his perspective through this story of the Bostonians…?. And imagine writing about women's rights movement intertwined with gay women of the day- a man writing in the 1800's! WoW – how progressive even today in 2011 people still debate the legitimacy of gay relationships (not me-please note I am happily married heterosexual). This is in amazing film. Period accurate and an incredible story about the dynamic of class – to be the lover of a women of means but who is really drawn to a traditional marriage – if he has the means to support her. Watch this from that perspective. It's remarkable to think that this was written in the late 1800's and that this film was done in the 1980s – so way ahead of its time. And then look at Christopher Reeve and how he took this movie to break out of his Superman stereo type…. Pretty incredible. I think the naysayers here really didn't get the historical significance of this film. Its an amazing film. Thank you Merchant and Ivory…you are amazing.

I have never thought much of James Ivory's direction and The Bostonians does little to change my mind. It was years ago I read the Henry James novel and I'm not one to criticise a film for not replicating the book,but I do recall the stupendous climax James achieved when Ransomemarched backstage at the Music Hall to literally carry Verena off. This has to be the climax of the film, but here it goes for nothing and makes less impact than the jeering audience. In too many other scenes points are similarly missed, the tone is misjudged and the pace is plodding. Nor is the acting distinguished except for Vanessa Redgrave who aims at an intensity that seems to belong to another (and better)film. One compensation is the camera work of Walter Lassally; but even here the carefully framed compositions don't flow.

Well meant production from the magical Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala team. This one was made before they hit their stride, however. The first mistake was casting Christopher Reeve in the lead. He always looks like he's acting, there's nothing natural about it. His performance here is in par with cheap 70's pornography acting. He is supposedly classically trained as an actor, but I guess anyone who pays for and attends acting classes can say the same. Some have it and some don't, he doesn't. The costumes, art direction and sets are all lavish and appealing. The dialog is far too updated to make one believe that it's taking place in another century, it's almost like a high school production in that aspect. Redgrave and Marchand both give good performances, nothing remarkable at all, but acceptable. The rest of the cast is a mish-mash of mostly b-listers. Scriptwriter Jhabvala has proved herself time and again to be quite the artist, but the script here is flat. Perhaps the book it was based on is this dull and unconvincing. I was left simply unaffected by any message they were trying to convey about the period. I'm a fanatic when it comes to Merchant/Ivory pictures, but this one just didn't cut it. It seems they were more in their element with their amazing and opulent European productions. The quality of their American films seems to be quite cheap in production in comparison. I'm simply left wondering what a masterpiece this could have been had it been set in and filmed in England. If you're an Ivory/Merchant fan, stick with their better titles "A Room With A View" & "Sense And Sensibility", they both surpass this effort by leagues.