By realizing The Remains of the dayJames Ivory offered a remarkable role to Anthony Hopkins, where he excels in modesty and unfulfilled desire. 4 star casting for a profound work, which seeks to transcribe what a man can endure in spite of himself, for the sake of discipline, and too great a sense of education, of refinement.
This review contains some elements that reveal the plot and its purpose.
This is a remarkable film about incommunicability. The introduction calls for a possible escapade, a way out, perhaps a renewal, even before the development of the main story. It indicates an ending which could give relief to the whole. But everything will remain linear, will end in a loop, with a tragic fatality. The plot will not be resolved. The expected meeting between the two main characters is just a parenthesis. The central protagonist, played by the amazing Anthony Hopkins, is a victim of his functions, of his good manners and like a catatonic man: no matter how much he expresses himself, it is as if he is saying nothing. He is a formal and anhedonic being (inability to feel pleasure), victim of alexithymia (difficulty recognizing his emotions and those of others). Everything is significant (and insignificant) but almost nothing is signified. There are no striking innuendoes, little body language. He lives without passion, in a sort of abolition of possible passions. It is the way in which he conceives his role as butler who is authoritative in his home, and who gags his aspirations, his individuality, his desires, his identity, his personality which cannot assert itself, free itself, breathe, being as if submissive to his social class. With the progression of Nazism in the background, his neutrality makes him neither good nor bad. We can’t expect a reaction from him, just discipline. However, we feel a hope in him, the expectation of a reward, but it can only happen if he becomes an actor and not a spectator of his own life. It is chronic passivity. A key scene shows Emma Thompson’s character playfully getting an inch closer to him (the distance of intimacy, of private life, of insecurity.) He then finds himself vulnerable. She notes that he reads romantic novels, which proves that he lives vicariously on the subject. The work therefore acts as a focal point, firstly on an environment, but above all and above all on a perpetual solitude, and refuses to be a simple historical fresco. It brings to mind, in a more contemporary era, A heart in winter by Claude Sautet, which refers to the same psycho-affective reading. Through his relentless account of the consequences of the demystification of union, of romance, The Remains of the day ends up being a hymn to love. The hero will watch, with melancholy, a pigeon take flight, symbol of a freedom that he will never have had, while being aware of everything that has escaped him.
Trailer – The Remains of the day
Synopsis : The doubts and torments of the butler of a large English family who, in 1956, after thirty years of perfect service, wonders if he has not wasted his life.
Technical Sheet – The Remains of the day
- Titre original : The Remains of the Day
- Distribution : Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Peter Vaughan
- Director: James Ivory
- Screenplay: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Image : Tony Pierce-Roberts
- Music: Richard Robbins
- Sound: Colin Miller Dolby stereo
- Montage : Andrew Marcus
- Production : John Calley, Ismail Merchant et Mike Nichols
- Country of production: United Kingdom and United States
- Format: 2.35:1 Colors by Technicolor
- Genre: drama and romance
- Duration: 134 minutes
- Release date: United States: November 5, 1993; France: February 23, 1994
