CENTURY
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1994 Ben Hoffman
It was almost the beginning of a new century when enthusiasm was high. What new medical advances could be expected? What changes in style, in manners and in things unimaginable would the 20th Century bring ... as well as a good deal of trepidation about what the future would hold.
Mr. Reisner (Robert Stephens), a Jewish merchant who had left Rumania to establish a successful business in Scotland, is a flamboyant, enthusiastic man. He has a daughter, Miriam (Lena Headey), and a son, Paul (Clive Owen). Paul is on his way to London to do medical research at the prestigious but controversial Whiteweather Institute run by a brilliant doctor, Professor Mandry (Charles Dance).
Mandry immediately spots Paul as the brightest of the researchers and has Paul promoted as his assistant. Together they visit the seamy side of London, the sick and homeless about whom Paul had been unaware. Mandry, appears to be not only a great medical man but a fine human being as well.... Paul soon learns otherwise,
When a colleague of Paul comes up with a new theory about neurology he would like to have tested, Paul sides with him. To his surprise, Mandry in effect says "No" by stalling. Paul lashes out at him for not pursuing this new research and accuses him of jealousy for not having come up with the idea himself ... at which point Paul is banished for a month from the Institute. Paul further learns, to his horror, that Mandry is engaged in his own "ethnic cleansing" by sterilizing poor sick women without their consent.
It was during this period that many otherwise brilliant men of letters were proposing some kind of method of "breeding out undesirables." The advent of Hitler put a lid on that kind of thinking but is again, apparently gaining some converts in Yugoslavia.
There is, of course, a love interest for Paul in the film, and who better than the beautiful Clara (Miranda Richardson), who works at the institute?
Director-Writer, Stephen Poliakoff does not have a wasted moment. All of the cast is wonderful but it always amazes me how Miranda Richardson can play such diverse parts so perfectly, as to name a few, the sweet woman in ENCHANTED APRIL and the IRA hardliner in The Crying Game. For my money, one of the best actors working today. She will be appearing shortly in TOM AND LIV ... and I can hardly wait.
4 Bytes 4 Bytes = Absolutely must see. 3 Bytes = Too good to be missed. 2 Bytes = So so. 1 Byte = Save your money.
Ben Hoffman
P.S. I did see TOM AND LIV tonight and Richardson was once again perfection. Excellent film, by the way.
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews