ANTONIA AND JANE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: At first glance Antonia and Jane appear
to be a real fox and an unattractive washrag. Yet each wants
to walk in the other's shoes. Beeban Kidron tells her story
with plenty of wit, but the result comes off far too short
and a bit episodic. The wit along the way satisfies more
than the story does. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
Jane frumps her way through life. She never knows how to act or how to dress. Jane thinks that everyone else has read the book HOW TO FUNCTION IN THE WORLD and nobody ever offered it to her. To make matters worse her best friend, whom she envies and hates, has just about everything. Antonia lives the good life. Married to the lover she stole from Jane, she has a responsible job high in the publishing business and a beautiful home. She also goes to the same psychiatrist that Jane does. From her point of view her life just goes from bad to worse. From her point of view her life stagnates while Jane has the courage to reinvent herself constantly and to explore new aspects of her personality.
Jane Hartman (played by Imelda Staunton) finds herself constitutionally unable to complain or assert herself. She floats like a cork on the currents of life, letting the tides of others' wills push her one way and then another. And like the cork, she never floats half in the currents and half out. She has a series of freaky relationships, like one with a boyfriend unable to have sex until he has been read to from the works of Iris Murdoch. Meanwhile her lifelong friend and rival Antonia McGill (played by Saskia Reeves) faces a different set of problems, mostly bred of her fast-track lifestyle. Her husband has an unfortunate taste for variety in bedmates. Her own extra-curricular activities do not satisfy her and only serve to complicate her life in bizarre ways.
Beeban Kidron, who previously directed ORANGES ARE NOT THE ONLY FRUIT presumably made ANTONIA AND JANE from BBC television. Kidron gives some Woody Allen twists to the old saw of the grass growing greener on the other side of the fence. The writer seasons her story with plenty of clever wit, but in an end that comes much too soon in this 79-minute film, the story amounts to no more than a humorous platitude. I rate ANTONIA AND JANE a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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