• It’s a strong bounce-back for Merchant/Ivory after 1989’s Slaves of New York
  • Features real life husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward- Woodward is nominated here but they’re both superb
  • Strong period piece study of an affluent Midwestern family—practicality and conservatism
  • Woodward plays the naïve, well-intentioned but often nattering housewife=– she’s painfully sheltered and captive
  • Strong mise-en-scene—wallpaper and period detail- really a gorgeous film- I love the Papier-mâché at the school dance which is shown with a reverse tracking shot like a Curtiz slow-tracking establishing shot
  • Kansas WASP- “the city can be the devil”, Eagle scouts,
  • “meticulously detailed”- Ebert
  • Trip to France- gorgeous churches, stunning, museums, tapestries
  • “why don’t these artists get jobs like everyone else and then they can paint on the weekends”- haha
  • Blythe Danner and Simon Callow in small roles- great- add color and verboseness
  • It’s almost Sirkian—fall leaves, American suburbia—décor—dueling twin beds for the married couple
  • Sexuality and nudity which is always nodded to in Merchant Ivory- here in the young son’s magazine
  • The film has aged fantastically
  • Hate the two sloppy wipe edits- another, sadly, trademark from Ivory
  • Family vignettes- reminded me of Fanny and Alexander
  • Generational dissonance
  • Newman plays a very hard man—and Woodward’s performance starts out as a bit of a parody but it comes full circle—the breakdown with the son- it’s a layered performance- strong—the car stuck in the garage is a great metaphor for her helplessness
  • Recommend