The Rachel Papers *** (1989, Dexter Fletcher, Ione Skye, Jonathan Pryce, James Spader) – Classic Movie Review 9,513

The 1989 British romantic drama The Rachel Papers with Dexter Fletcher and Ione Skye is a reasonably attractive film version of Martin Amis’s funny, bawdy 1973 first novel.

Writer-director Damian Harris’s 1989 British romantic drama film The Rachel Papers stars Dexter Fletcher as a precocious teenager called Charles Highway, who is 19, going to Oxford University, and wants to sleep with a beautiful older woman before he is 20.

Ione Skye plays the prime object of his desire, Rachel Noyce, but she is already booked by her boyfriend Deforest (James Spader). Fletcher sets out to seduce her anyway, only to find the chase is more fun than the catch.

This reasonably attractive film version of Martin Amis’s funny, bawdy 1973 first novel loses impact by updating the tale from the early Seventies to the late Eighties, by toning down the story (though it still had an 18 certificate in the UK), and by making Skye’s character an American.

But the stars are pleasing, there are excellent cameos from Michael Gambon as a don named Doctor Knowd and Jonathan Pryce as Fletcher’s weird but trendy brother-in-law Norman, plus a good cast in Bill Paterson, Shirley Anne Field, Lesley Sharp, Jared Harris (son of Richard) and Aubrey Morris. And it is a confident début by adaptor-director Damian Harris (also son of Richard).

Also in the cast are Amanda De Cadenet, Claire Skinner, Nicola Kimber, Pat Keen and Gina McKee.

It is 1989, but Charles has a computer – a Commodore Amiga A500.

The 2003 Region 1 DVD has a more explicit extended version of the Electric Moon love scene.

Damian Harris is the son of Richard Harris and the older brother of Jared Harris.

The Rachel Papers is directed by Damian Harris, runs 95 minutes, is made by Initial Film and Television and Longfellow, is released by Virgin, is written by Damian Harris, is shot by Alex Thomson, is produced by Andrew S Karsch, is scored by Chaz Jankel and David Storrs, and designed by Andrew McAlpine.

Martin Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023).

Martin Amis died from oesophageal cancer at his home in Florida on 19 May 2023. He died at the age of 73, like his father, noted English novelist Sir Kingsley Amis. His notable works include The Rachel Papers (1973), Money (1984) and London Fields (1989). Aged 15, Amis played John Thornton in the 1965 film of Richard Hughes’s A High Wind in Jamaica. He graduated from Exeter College, Oxford, in 1971, with a congratulatory first in English.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9,513

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