Originally shared by Drew McCarthy

Originally shared by Drew McCarthy

The Winter Guest

It's hard to say why I find this movie so moving and evocative.  The pace is slow, and some folks are likely to find the Scots dialect and culture a bit impenetrable.

But there is magic in this film, Alan Rickman's debut, from a play he commissioned based on the anecdotes told by his Les Liaisons Dangereuses co-star, Lindsay Duncan.  Phyllida Law, Arlene Cockburn, Sheila Reid and Sandra Voe reprised their stage roles in the film, along with Emma Thompson.

The interaction between Phyllida and Emma, mother and daughter both in the film, and real life, is a joy to watch, even though it is full of difficulties for them both.

"There's quite a lot of full circles in this piece," Rickman muses, "what with Phyllida not being able to do the play until the time when we did it, because she'd been nursing her own mother and she couldn't do any theatre. And then the absolute moment I rang her to ask her if she would read it was when she was available to do theatre again. And then the fact that when the notion of the film came up, it so happened that the circle was turning and it was exactly the right time for Emma. Five years earlier and she would have been too young."

As is common for a theatrical adaptation, the dialog is important, but the real strength of the movie is in the actors, where often the pauses speak more eloquently than anything else.  Except, perhaps, the gorgeous scenery, filmed on location in the East Neuk of Fife by Seamus McGarvey. 
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120521/

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