San Francisco International Film Festival
Official Selection
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The Romantic Englishwoman1975
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A sly, sophisticated love story, THE ROMANTIC ENGLISHWOMAN is a "masterfully acted comedy" (San Francisco Examiner) that is a showcase for its two Oscar®-winning stars: Michael Caine (HANNAH AND HER SISTERS) and Glenda Jackson (WOMEN IN LOVE). Caine plays successful novelist Lewis Fielding, whose imagination spins ever-more elaborate scenarios of infidelity when his wife Elizabeth (Glenda Jackson) goes on a solo vacation to Baden Baden. When a young man she met there, Thomas (Helmut Berger), rings their home and shows up for tea, the couple's mutual jealousies explode to the surface. The line between Fielding's reality and his fantasies becomes blurred, breaking down altogether in the final act, when their lives turn into a suspense thriller featuring an enigmatic hit man and secret drug deals. With a sparklingly witty screenplay from Academy Award-winner Tom Stoppard (SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE) and Thomas Wiseman and an "elaborate visual style with glamorous and elegant settings" (Wall Street Journal) framed by director Joseph Losey (THE SERVANT), THE ROMANTIC ENGLISHWOMAN is a sparklingly intelligent, wildly entertaining ride.
What makes this film worth watching?
Official selection of the 1975 Cannes Film Festival.
2 members like this review
This romantic film was way ahead of it's time. The production is abundant with flair and detail, so much so that sometimes you notice the background more then the foreground. Storyline is somewhat water thin.
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Starring
- Helmut Berger - Thomas
- Michael Caine - Lewis Fielding
- Nathalie Delon - Miranda
- Glenda Jackson - Elizabeth
- Reinhard Kolldehoff - Herman
- Michael Lonsdale - Swan
- Kate Nelligan - Isabel
- Béatrice Romand - Catherine
- Anna Steele - Annie
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Member Reviews (18)
top reviewer
This romantic film was way ahead of it's time. The production is abundant with flair and detail, so much so that sometimes you notice the background more then the foreground. Storyline is somewhat water thin.
2 members like this review
top reviewer
Worth watching for Losey's signature mirror shots alone... Great cinematography. If the gangster Swan looks familiar that's because you've probably seen the actor who plays him, Michael Lonsdale, in French arthouse flicks by Truffaut, Resnais, or Jacques Rivette's 13 hour masterpiece Out 1: Noli me tangere. And as well, Austrian Helmut Berger can be found in Visconti masterpieces The Damned and Ludwig. Wonderful casting and performances. An extremely arty thriller which also in the midst of its intrigue intelligently explores bourgeois sterility and decay.
1 member likes this review
top reviewer
THIS MOVIE WAS SURPRISINGLY ENTERTAINING IT HAD KIND OF A FREEFLOWING SCRIPT SEVERAL DEGREES OF ROMANCE WELL CAST AND ATTIMES SOME WELL PLACED HUMOR WORTH A LEAST BEING WATCHED ONCE MAYBE TWICE.NEVER DULL AT ANYTIME !
top reviewer
Glenda Jackson is always amazing to watch. She makes this somewhat flawed film good.
top reviewer
Joseph Losey's The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) is an excellent film with much artistic merit.
It has a deep and complex storyline that makes itself available to several interpretation.
This is a very visually beautiful film. The cinematography is outstanding. The editing is innovative, The lighting effects really add to the film.
It's a film that I want to view again because it has such a complex, integrated structure that it was difficult for me to grasp it all in just one viewing.
top reviewer
One of my fsvorite Joseph Losey films and one of my favorite Glenda Jackson movies. Screenplay co-written by Tom Stoppard...an adaptation of a British novel infidelity, jealousy, romance. A thriller that is also a "chick-flick". I wish they still made films like this today with story lines that appeal to both men and women over the age of thirty.
I liked it. Off the usual track. Engaging. A good mix of romance, suspense, fantasy, and a nice dash of absurdity.
I wouldn't call this a comedy - more of a drama. Watchable and entertaining enough, but overacted in places. Not quite enough going on to be a really good movie.
Excellent performances from a script that keeps us more interested with the change of locations.
not my cup of tea......
Bizarre, dry, slow-paced, and I almost fell asleep several times. Glenda Jackson saved the movie.
Great
Good film, typical 1970's impossible romance, but well acted. Gad...what were people thinking in the '70's.
I love Glenda Jackson but not in this film.
Somewhat of a disappointment. The acting was good...but we never knew if they were going for farce or plain drama. The director seemed to strike a middle ground which left no one happy. Was very Edward Albee like in its dialogue and situations but never reached the passion one felt was inside these characters.
If you want to be intrigued by a film about a writer struggling with writing about a screenplay and getting reality confused with fiction, there are better choices.
Good to see these two in their prime. Interesting locations. Not a strong plot, but entertaining.
it is different