Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching Comfy, Cozy movies this September and October and this week we are discussing Ladies in Lavender.
Ladies in Lavender stars Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. It was released in 2004 and was written and directed by Charles Dance, who is also a well-known British actor (Game of Thrones). It was his directorial debut. The screenplay that Dance wrote, according to information online, is based on a short story by the same name written by William Locke in 1908. I also thought it was interesting to find out that a play based on the movie was later developed.
I watched it on Amazon Prime for free (with a membership) but it is also free on Peacock, Tubi, the Roku Channel, and PlutoTV.
Janet (Maggie Smith) and Ursula Widdington (Judi Dench) are spinster sisters living in a small coastal English town. Their life is pretty slow and mundane from what we can tell at first. They clean and knit and have tea but not much else.
One morning Ursula is looking out her upstairs window when she sees a man on the beach. She and her sister run to him and with the help of the local doctor bring him inside. They believe he’s been washed up from a shipwreck of some sort.
As they nurse him back to health they realize he doesn’t speak English. After some effort they discover he speaks Polish and his name is Andrea (Daniel César Martín Brühl González – A German/Spanish actor who is known to comic book fans as Helmut Zemo/Baron Zemo).
Since this is right before World War II this makes the people in the small town a bit anxious when they learn of where he’s from later on. It doesn’t help that there is also a woman living in the area who speaks German. This puts everyone on edge but at the same time, people begin to like Andrea when he is able to move around.
First, he is nursed back to health by Janet and Ursula and Ursula teaches him some English.
At one point Janet is playing piano downstairs. Andrea has been upstairs recovering and when he hears the music he covers his ears and asks for it to stop. Janet has a book of German and knows a few words so she finds a way to communicate with him and learns he loves music but prefers the violin. So the ladies find the local fiddler player who plays a few tunes for the recovering Andrea. We can tell that Andrea is trying to be polite but that he’s not excited by the man’s inferior performance. He asks if he can play the fiddle and ends up kicking a much more polished and classical version of the folk song out, which tells us he is an accomplished violinist.
I won’t lie – I did worry that this movie was going to go a bit weird at one point because Andrea had to stay with the sisters while he recovered and Ursula became very infatuated with him but it didn’t go where I worried it would.
To explain a bit without giving too much away – Judi Dench’s character becomes enamored with Andrea and though she knows she’s too old for him she sort of imagines what it would like to be younger and be able to fall in love with him.
Both she and her sister really become attached to him but more in a matronly way for Maggie Smith’s character. They both want to take care of him. He brings such happiness and love into their lonely lives. He brightens their otherwise mundane existence and reveals to them experiences they never had – being wives and mothers.
They are afraid he will leave them when they see his talent and they see the German woman, who is also an artist, speaking to him and becoming friends with him.
This is a very artistic movie with beautiful scenery, superb acting, and a sweet story. I wouldn’t say it is the best movie I’ve ever seen as if feels like there was more that could have been done with some of the characters – especially Andrea who I would have liked to know more about in regards to his background and upbringing.
Still, I enjoyed this one and find it a very comfy, cozy watch since the characters are so endearing. The sisters are caring and sweet in their own ways and the housekeeper is very funny. She’s a bit rough on the edges but even she becomes attached to Andrea.
The short story that the movie was based on was first published in Collier’s magazine and later included in a book of other short stories by Locke called Faraway Stories in 1916.
Dance said Smith and Dench were the only ones considered for the roles and if he had not been able to get them, he wouldn’t have made the movie. He asked them when they were in a play together and accepted the offer without even seeing the script.
This was González’s first English-speaking movie. I also thought it was very interesting that he did not play the violin in the movie. Instead, it was the famous violinist Joshua Bell.
I thought it was interesting that we chose this as a comfy, cozy movie for this year and a New York Times critic said of the movie “[Dench and Smith] sink into their roles as comfortably as house cats burrowing into a down quilt on a windswept, rainy night… This amiably far-fetched film… heralds the return of the Comfy Movie…”
Next up on our Comfy, Cozy Cinema is Kiki’s Delivery Service.
And here is a list of the rest of the movies we are watching through November.
Feel free to link up your own impressions of the movies at our link-ups. The links close at the end of the week but feel free to leave your blog post on future link-ups, even if it is for another movie.
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching Comfy, Cozy movies this September and October and this week we are discussing Somewhere in Time.
I am going to warn you that I know this movie is sacred to many, but that I am going to pick a bit here. If you are a fan, take my teasing as affectionate teasing. There were aspects I liked and aspects I just didn’t get.
Somewhere in Time was released in 1980 and stars Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer. It is based on the book Bid Time Return by science fiction/horror author Richard Matheson who also wrote a few other well known books I Am Legend (1954), What Dreams May Come (1978), Hell House (2008), and The Omega Man (1975). Many of his books were made into movies. He also wrote the screenplay for Somewhere In Time.
The story is about a playwright who travels back in time by merely wishing he can be there.
That’s pretty much the plot of the movie, but I’ll explain further.
Richard Collier is approached by an elderly woman after one of his plays and she hands him a watch and says, “Come back to me,” and then leaves.
It’s a creepy moment, if you ask me, and in real life Richard would have said, “Who was that old lady?” and then thrown the watch out. But this is Hollywood so he holds on to the watch and eight years later when he hits a slump in his career he decides to head to Michigan to take a break from life – because that’s the first place I think to go when I need a break from life. Not Hawaii or the Bahamas but Michigan.
This is a joke Michiganers! Honestly, I’m so jealous when Erin tells me of all the lovely places Michigan has. Sometimes she even sends pictures to rub it in more! *wink* Plus a ton of cozies I read all take place in Michigan. So it is either very lovely or there are a lot of murders there. Either way – much more exciting than Pennsylvania.
Okay, back to Richard. He travels to Michigan and Mackinac Island where he decides to visit The Grand Hotel because as a student at a nearby college he’d always heard about the hotel but had never visited it.
We, the viewer, have already heard of the hotel because this is where the old lady in the beginning of the movie returned to after she gave Richard the watch.
While staying at the hotel Richard becomes enamored with a photo of Elise McKenna (Seymour) who was an actress from the early 1900s. She performed at the hotel in 1912. He begins to research everything he can about her and finds an up to date photo of her in a library book and realizes she’s the woman who gave him the watch.
After visiting a former caretaker/friend of Elise’s, Richard learns Elise died the night she gave him the watch. While visiting the woman he also finds a book on time travel and for some unexplained reason, Richard decides he must find a way to go back in time to meet Elise.
Conveniently, the man who wrote the book about time travel is also in Michigan and tells Richard that to go back in time he must lock himself in a room and remove all distractions that would make him think he was still in modern times. He must instead focus solely on what time period he wants to go to and say over and over he is actually in that time period.
Sigh. Yes. As if the movie already wasn’t a bit cheesy – this is where it turns the ridiculous corner.
There were so many moments in this movie that I am sure were meant to be romantic or moving or suspenseful but all I could do was giggle.
The way the light hits her photo in the beginning of the film like a spotlight from heaven and the cheesy music starts playing – super, super loud? That was one of them.
Then when he’s trying to go back in time he looks like he ate too much shrimp at dinner so he’s having major cramps.
I should add that before he tries to go back in time he buys a suit he thinks fits the time period and then uses a pair of scissors and the hotel room mirror to cut his hair perfectly to fit the time period. Yeah. Okay. Like he could do that all by himself. Ha. But it’s a movie so we will go with it.
Since you already know the movie is called Somewhere in Time you know that he arrives in the past. I won’t say much beyond this other than there was so much more I wanted them to do with the time the couple had together. Like Erin said to me, the pacing of this movie felt off – things were so rushed and squished and sort of discombobulated.
Despite that, I somehow sort of liked the movie. Reeve, Seymour, and Plummer (who plays Elise’s manager/guardian since she was 16. Let us not focus too much on what that means. Ahem. I believe he really was just her guardian) acted well giving great – or at least commendable – performances. I think this was only Reeve’s second movie with his first being Superman.
The concept of the movie was very interesting and it was a lovely location for a movie as well. Much better than San Diego, where the book was set.
You can read Erin’s post to learn more about the location because I’m sure she mentions that she has visited the location a few times since she lives near there.
The book, by the way, had Richard visiting the Hotel del Coronado because he had an inoperable brain tumor and wanted to spend his last days there. It’s while there he sees Elise’s photos and things proceed like the movie in most ways. The only thing is the ending of the book makes more sense than the ending of the movie, in my opinion. I won’t share either ending here but I will say I didn’t like the ending of the movie so I wish Matheson had not changed it for the movie. Not sure why he did.
Incidentally, the book was inspired by a true story – sort of.
According to information I read and watched online, Matheson was traveling with his family when he was entranced by the portrait of American Actress Maude Adams that was hanging in the Piper’s Opera House in Nevada.
“It was such a great photograph,” Matheson said, “that creatively I fell in love with her. What if some guy did the same thing and could go back in time?”
Matheson proceeded to research her life and became fascinated with her being a recluse. To write the novel he stayed at the Hotel Del Coronado for several weeks and dictated what he saw and learned into a tape recorder, personally experiencing himself in the role of Richard Collier. He based most of the biographical information about Elise on Adam’s life and said the books original title came from a line in William Shakespeare’s Richard II: “O call back yesterday, bid time return.”
I am personally glad the name was changed for the movie. It made it much more marketable, even though from what I read about this movie, Universal Pictures did very little to promote it, which may be one reason it wasn’t a huge commercial success.m at the time. It did, however, become a huge cult classic.
Of the book Matheson said: “, “Somewhere in Time is the story of a love which transcends time, What Dreams May Come is the story of a love which transcends death…. I feel that they represent the best writing I have done in the novel form.”
There you go – now you can keep that in mind if you ever choose to read the books, or if you have read them.
If you would like to know more about Maude Adams, by the way, you can visit this Wikipedia page (which can easily be changed and manipulated as we have learned over the years, so also look at legit sources for your facts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maude_Adams
While looking for reviews and trivia about this movie I found a hilarious review by movie critic Roger Ebert.
I do not recommend reading this review if Somewhere in Time is a favorite of yours or holds some kind of sentimental value. While the review made me giggle, it is quite harsh. You can find it here: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/somewhere-in-time-1980
Erin told me about a Somewhere in Time package you can book at The Grand Hotel and I’ll include that link here without the jokes she and I made about what the package would include since sharing the jokes would include spoilers.
While reading about the package I learned that Jane Seymour still visits the hotel often for personal and professional reasons. Sadly, both Plummer and Reeve are no longer with us and can’t visit.
This movie was not a box office success, as I mentioned above, but over the years it has developed a cult following, hence the hotel offering a package in its name and hosting events related to it.
The theme song of Somewhere in Time, in case you are wondering, was not written for the movie like some might think. It is “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” by Sergei Rachmaninoff, written in 1934.
A few more trivia tidbits I found online included:
Score creator John Barry’s parents both died shortly before he began to work on the film, making the music that much more emotional. (source TVTropes.com)
Christopher Reeve took the role even though it didn’t pay as much as others because he was very touched by the story and script. (source TVTropes.com)
The first time Richard sees Elise is also the first time Christopher Reeve saw the picture because the director Jeannot Szwarc wanted his authentic reaction. (source TVTropes.com) (Thank God he looked enamored because otherwise they might have had to edit out his reaction. Not that I can imagine anyone making a disgusted expression when looking at Jane Seymour.)
According to Seymour, she and Reeve really did fall in love while filming and they hid the relationship from the cast and crew but that the relationship ended when Reeve found out his ex-girlfriend was pregnant with his child. The two remained close friends and Seymour even named her son after him. (source TVTropes.com)
While Christopher Reeve was filming this movie, the local theater decided to show his latest hit Superman (1978). Many of the “Somewhere” cast joined the locals for the event. Early into the screening, the sound went out. Reeve, who was seated next to Jane Seymour, stood up in the audience and delivered all the lines. (source imbd.com)
As of 2008, the numbers of Elise McKenna and Richard Collier’s rooms do not exist at the Grand Hotel. However, there is a Somewhere in Time suite. (source imbd.com)
Here is a trailer of Somewhere in Time if you’ve never seen it and think you might want to:
I will add that Roger Ebert suggested another movie that he felt better represented a time travel movie with romance included.
It sounds quite a bit darker to me but here is a preview for Time After Time:
I watched this movie on Amazon but it can be rented from a variety of streaming services, purchased on DVD, and probably found at local libraries.
Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs, and I are continuing our Comfy Cozy Cinema this week with our impressions of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a movie based on the book These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach. It was released in 2011 and directed by John Madden and includes an all star line up.
“We have a saying in India – ‘Everything will be alright in the end so if it is not alright, it is not the end’,”
Sonny Kapoor in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
We are watching movies each week and then writing about them on Thursdays on our blogs from September to the end of October. If you want to join in with us, we will have link ups at the end of the posts each week that will be open several days after the posts are published. In other words, you don’t have to post your impressions on the day we do.
To summarize a bit first, this movie is about a couple and five other people who all see an ad online about a hotel in India where they can move to for a different experience and to save money. The ad boasts that the hotel is exotic and beautiful and recently remodeled.
Sadly, once the residents arrive, they find out the ad was very misleading. Less sadly, the manager is a wonderful young man who means well.
Sonny (Dev Patel) is trying to run the hotel and build it up so he can stand on his own, without the support of his rich mother and brothers who think he’s a screw up like their father apparently was.
Sonny is also dating a young woman (Tina Desai) but wants to have something to show that he is successful before he proposes to her. He is also afraid to tell her he loves her because he feels like he doesn’t have to say it. He has to show it.
I watched this movie several years ago and enjoyed watching it again – this time with a different set of eyes, so to speak.
Confession time – I love Judi Dench in pretty much anything I see her in, honestly. I did not plan on suggesting two movies with her and Maggie Smith together but, well, that’s happened because I love the two together. I actually forgot Maggie was in this one when I picked it, but I love that she was. I wish they had had more time together on screen since they are best friends in real life (hello Tea With The Dames.)
Each character in this movie is facing their own challenge.
We have Judi’s character, Evelyn, who is dealing with the aftermath of the death of her husband who she realizes did everything for her over the years and has left her with nothing and nowhere to go.
There is Jean (Penelope Wilton) and Doug Ainslie (Bill Nighy) who have come to the harsh realization that all the money they thought they had to use in their retirement is gone. They are now being forced to buy a smaller home and travel less, but they hope moving to the hotel will give them the opportunity to do something new and exciting and experience life fresh again. Jean is hoping for more prestige and riches, if we’re honest, and she’s in for a rude awakening.
Celia Imrie is a woman who moves from man to man but feels like because she is getting older that ship has sailed so she decides to head to India to see if she can hook one more rich man.
Norm (Ronald Pickup….that’s his real name) wants to – ahem – sow his seeds, so to speak, one or several more times with a pretty woman and looks at the trip to India as a chance to do that.
Graham (Tom Wilkinson) is a judge who has burnt out and returns to India to look up an old lover – a man whose life he’s sure he ruined when they had an affair when they were younger. That affair went against the Indian man’s faith and he is certain it ruined the man’s life over the next 40 years. He wants to find him to tell him he still loves him but also apologize.
Muriel (Maggie Smith) needs hip surgery but will have to wait a long time if she stays in England so a doctor offers her the opportunity to travel to India to have the surgery done quicker. One big problem? She’s a raging racist/bigot. Eek. Of course there is more to her story and we never do exactly understand why she is racist but we do see some redemption.
I believe it is absolutely possible to fall in love with every single character in this film with exception to one but even in that case I could actually understand her.
Jean is a difficult character. She’s nasty, stuck up, and selfish. It might be an unpopular opinion but I feel that she’s also scared. She is absolutely terrified of what her life is going to be like now that she’s older. She thought life would turn out differently than it has and now she is lost and she is frightened and though that isn’t an excuse of how she acts, it is probably why she is so snotty and negative.
She not only makes her husband’s life miserable but ruins the experiences of everyone around her. She sucks the fun out of everything and toward the end of the movie it is clear that she is desperately trying to hang on to the control she has had her entire life, partially thanks to her weak husband. Doug is sweet and excited to experience India, don’t get me wrong, but he should have stood up to his wife long ago.
According to information online, “most of the filming took place in the Indian state of Rajasthan, including the cities of Jaipur and Udaipur. Ravla Khempur, an equestrian hotel which was originally the palace of a tribal chieftain in the village of Khempur, was chosen as the site for the film hotel.”
I always like sharing some trivia about the movies I watch so here are a few from this one:
Tom Wilkinson, who plays Graham, is actually married to Diana Hardcastle, who is the woman Norman hits on in the movie.
The hotel is actually the Ravla Khempur; a hotel with stables that is located in Khempur in the state of Rajasthan. Built in 1620, it served for centuries as the residence of a series of village chieftains, eventually being converted into a hotel. Due to the success of this film, the place was renamed The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Jean Ainslie (Dame Penelope Wilton) reads “Tulip Fever” by Deborah Moggach, on whose novel, “These Foolish Things”, this movie was based. Tulip Fever (2017) was filmed a few years later.
The cast includes two Oscar winners: Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith; and three Oscar nominees: Tom Wilkinson and Dev Patel and Bill Nighy.
Bill Nighy and Hugh Dickson previously worked together in the BBC Radio drama The Lord of the Rings, as Sam and Elrond, respectively. The roles of Bilbo and Aragorn were played by Ian Holm and Robert Stephens, who were formerly married to Penelope Wilton and Maggie Smith.
(trivia sources Imbd.com.)
This is a movie that drew me in from the beginning. I truly wanted to know what happened to each character. I laughed and cried – you know – all the cliché things but I think I understood the movie even more now that I am also getting older.
There is a lot of fear and uncertainty for these “pensioners” as they are called in the UK. They are over the age of 60 and in some cases they’ve never even really experienced life. They have a lot to teach and a lot to learn and we learn right along with them.
My favorite characters are Evelyn and Sonny. We see changes in all of the characters but these two truly transform and connect throughout the movie.
I just saw that there is a sequel to this film that was released in 2015 and I hope to watch that this weekend.
Have you seen this one? What did you think of it?
Here is a copy of our schedule for the next few weeks:
I hope you will join in or at least follow along as we discuss these movies.
