FeaturesOriginal Theatrical Trailer\Interactive Menu\Chapter Selection, Widescreen, Closed Caption, With Subtitles
GenreDrama, Romantic
Additional Product Features
Number of Discs1
Certificate15
Hearing ImpairedEnglish\German
Additional InformationIn this dramatic film, director Karel Reisz and screenwriter Harold Pinter adapt the complex romantic novel by John Fowles, THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN. Set in 1867, Sarah Woodrough (Meryl Streep), a beautiful young woman, is condemned by society and driven into a deep melancholy because of her tragic affair with a French lieutenant. Fowles adds depth and texture to the story by including direct historical asides and scientific lessons by Charles Smithson (Jeremy Irons), a wealthy amateur paleontologist and follower of Charles Darwin. In addition, there is a film within the film in which modern-day (1981) characters Anna (Streep) and Mike (Irons) provide comments on the characters they're portraying, and a little history, but primarily provide a parallel story as they enter an adulterous affair of their own. The contrast between the Victorian and the contemporary affairs, at first jarring, is beautifully staged and photographed. Streep's two performances, as the passionate Sarah, with her beautiful head of pre-Raphaelite hair and as the cool, modern Anna, never converge; the distinctness of the division between the two characters symbolises the almost unconscious perception that however distant a person feels from their repressed Victorian sexuality, it's still connected to them, as Darwin would say.
ReviewsNew York Times - ...An astonishingly beautiful film, acted to the elegant hilt by Meryl Streep....Dazzling..., Variety - ...The handsome production, superlative craft and sympathetic portraits make for a virtually irresistible piece of entertainment...
The title is self evident but the elliptical duality of the narratives subverted the import of the title
From Woodruff to Rough Wood
'The French Lieutenants Woman' is a strange film. I came to it without having read the book on which it is based so doubtless there are some elements of the book which are lost in adaptation but sadly that which is lost is precisely that which made I presume prompted some one to make the story seem worthy of a film version.
I do not deny that Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep acquit their respective rôles with great skill and passion, and I do not deny that the settings were authentic and well accomplished but for those not conversant with the book I suspect that the auditor/viewer emerges from the experience mystified as to why the film was made at all and what makes for this persistent perplexity is the introduction of modern counterparts in the form of the producer and the principal actress except perhaps that it explains why so many marriages in the film world lack the substance of real people who are in a relationship. The dangers of simulation make the protagonists surrogates of themselves in different contexts. The dual theme detracts from the narrative of either. What does emerge is the invidious position of young women who are rendered notorious by outraging the hypocritical censoriousness of the respectable fortified by a biblical morality but the dual theme subverts this argument by introducing extraneous contemporary parallels that are eventually specious, and so whilst the film was well made ad the Victorian ethos was well done I was too stupid to understand the parallels [which is possible, and even probable'] to recognise the purpose or value from this duality. I enjoyed the film as far as it went but found myself still perplexed by the reason for the film and I would like enlightenment from any who read this review
Compelling, a story within a story: great performances, detail in costume equally pleasing photography I will view again...
Curious physiological make up of the ‘French Lieutenants’s Woman’....