A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1989 Jeff Meyer
[Seen at the Seattle International Film Festival]
A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL (Great Britain, 1989) Director/Producer: Michael Winner Screenwriter: Alan Ayckbourn and Michael Winner, from the play by Ayckbourn Cast: Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, Jenny Seagrove, Prunella Scales, Lionel Jeffries, Richard Briers, Patsy Kensit, Alexandra Pigg
Rambling comedies with eccentric characters have been very much in vogue within the independent cinema over the last decade; and indeed, some very good work has been done with this kind of premise. A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL is not one of them. It opens with a very shy widower (Irons) who has been moved to a British seaside town by his company deciding to start a social life again. He comes upon an ad in the local paper about a volunteer production of "The Beggar's Opera" looking for players, and decides that this will be the means for his reentry into a social life.
The cast of "The Beggar's Opera" is a collection of characters from all social and financial strata, most of them rather strident; the only really enjoyable one is the director, played by Anthony Hopkins with hearty grouchy malice. Irons starts out with a bit role, but due to either illness on the part of a cast member, or bad blood between actors, he finds himself moving into better and better roles. At the same time, Iron's personality begins to change as he takes on bigger, more challenging parts; he becomes more self-confident, more charming -- and more manipulative of the people he's working with. He also starts affairs with two of the company, one of them being Hopkin's wife. The dilemmas this creates throw Irons back and forth between the Garrison Keillor side of his personality and his "star" side -- and several levels in-between.
This isn't new ground for a film, but that doesn't matter; the point is really that it isn't very funny. The dialogue is fairly flat, and the characters never take on any real dimension (except for Hopkins'); if it was meant to be more of a drama than a comedy, then the characters need added dimension. It ends with no surprise, just a wry side-glance at the acting profession and those who work in it. The trouble is, the events of A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL, presented the way they are, are hardly worth a side-glance in the first place.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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