Plenty *** (1985, Meryl Streep, Sam Neill, Charles Dance, Tracey Ullman, John Gielgud, Sting, Ian McKellen, André Maranne, Bert Kwouk) – Classic Movie Review 6377

Meryl Streep heads an outstanding cast in Fred Schepisi’s 1985 film of the David Hare play about Susan Traherne, an Englishwoman whose work for the French resistance in World War Two eclipses all of her restless post-war life in peacetime.

Notable among the true Brit actors are John Gielgud as Sir Leonard Darwin, an honourable elderly diplomat who resigns in protest over the 1956 fiasco Suez crisis, Sting as a cockney stud, and Charles Dance as Streep’s husband. They all score strongly, and so does Sam Neill as her fellow resistance worker.

But of course it remains Streep’s show. Though her English period accent seems perfect and the performance is a technical tour de force, she lacks real emotion and has to fight a hard battle to keep us interested for two hours in a character who is selfish, destructive and sometimes plain infuriating.

Still, with Hare providing his own screenplay, Plenty is a challenging, difficult but important and worthwhile piece of work, and certainly valuable as an acting showcase alone.

It must be the first time Sting found himself sandwiched between John Gielgud and Ian McKellen, at least in a cast list. Also in the cast are Tracey Ullman, André Maranne, Bert Kwouk, Andy de la Tour, Ian Wallace, Roddy Maude-Roxby and Hugh Laurie.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6377

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