THE WINSLOW BOY (Sony Pictures Classics) Directed by David Mamet
The audience that embraced all those tony Merchant-Ivory productions of years past ("Howard's End," "The Remains of the Day," "A Room with a View") is likely to adore "The Winslow Boy," a drawing room drama which comes from a surprising source: David Mamet, the dramatist-director best known for such jolting works as "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Oleanna."
How did the salty tongued Mamet manage to come up with such a stately -- and, shockingly, G-rated -- film? First of all, the source material is not his own. "Winslow" has been adapted from Terence Rattigan's 1946 play, which was previously filmed in 1948 with Robert Donat and again in 1988 with Ian Richardson and Emma Thompson. The piece was based on the real-life case of a young Osborne Royal Naval Academy cadet whose expulsion in 1908 became the talk of London after Sir Robert Morton, the solicitor who had once defended Oscar Wilde, took up the case. Though Mamet has reshaped the material somewhat, this is still one of his more straightforward works; anyone expecting the twists and turns of previous Mamet movies such as "House of Games" or "The Spanish Prisoner" may feel slightly short-changed.
Then again, "Winslow" is not a suspense story, but a character study. Although there's a good deal of attention paid to the intricacies of British law, what Mamet is primarily interested in is the inner workings of the Winslows, a South Kensington clan who forsake their comforts and social position in an effort to clear the name of youngest son Ronnie (Guy Edwards). Despite numerous obstacles and setbacks, Arthur (Nigel Hawthorne), the patriarch, forges ahead with his demand for a fair trial, even though it means sacrificing another son's Oxford education and his daughter Catherine's (Rebecca Pidgeon) prospects for marriage. Even Arthur's devoted wife Grace (Gemma Jones) finds it difficult to endorse what seems to her to be less a quest for justice than a vain attempt to restore the Winslow name.
The Winslow's reversal of fortune comes when Sir Robert Morton (Jeremy Northam) enters the picture and decides to assist them. Though Catherine disapproves of Morton's aloof attitude ("Nothing could stir that dead heart," she remarks), the controlled friction that develops between them suggests they may still be seeing each other regardless of how the case turns out. In typical British style, the emotions are consistently underplayed and the toll of the trial on the household suggested rather than dramatized. Nor do we see any of the courtroom action, a strategy which keeps the focus on the family. At the same time, centering so much of the drama in the home sometimes makes "Winslow" seem a little stagy and constrained, especially in the movie's set-up sequences.
But the performances are strong enough to carry the film along. Hawthorne expertly renders a picture of a gentleman who seems to be disintegrating from the inside outside, while Pidgeon, whose awkwardness in "The Spanish Prisoner" was that picture's only glaring weak spot, does an admirable job of showing how the "modern woman" Catherine comes into her own while protecting her brother. With a sly smile and an arch tone of voice, Northam communicates everything we need to know about Morton and his true motivations. James Sanford
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