Food of Love
UKFrance 1997
Reviewed by Demetrios Matheou
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Alex, a London bank manager, feels nostalgic for the summer when, as a student, he staged a Shakespeare play in a village. He decides to repeat the experience and rerecruits his fellow actors, including: Sam, who hopes to meet stage manager Madeline again, whom he jilted back then; brothers Donald and Luke; Robin and Mary, now married; and Michèle, their French costume designer, who secretly harbours feelings for Alex. Alex also enlists three teenagers from the acting class he teaches in his spare time.
The troupe arrive to find the village still beautiful but much less welcoming, partly because their production of Twelfth Night has been preferred to a local play. Rehearsals are shambolic. Alex is sacked by the bank. A performance is arranged at the local prison where the play is rapturously received. But Robin collapses in agony with gallstones. Michèle and Madeline volunteer to take Robin and Mary's places. Alex and Michèle make love, as do Sam and Madeline. Although the show is a disaster, the group is elated. Alex's pupil Jessica suggests he become a drama teacher.
Review
Two major preoccupations dominate the work of writer/ director Stephen Poliakoff: the city, with its secrets and injustices; and the corrupting nature of 'progress'. In his best film, Close My Eyes, these concerns dovetail with the film's focus on and setting in London's Canary Wharf, the failings of which are echoed in the moral turpitude of an incestuous brother and sister. However, these themes can also mire Poliakoff's films in cloying nostalgia. The leafy alternative to Canary Wharf Close My Eyes offers is convincing only because of Alan Rickman's forceful performance as the cuckolded good guy in his semi-rural retreat. But the conceit of Poliakoff's television drama The Tribe - a cult standing tall against greedy city developers - is frankly ludicrous. In Food of Love Poliakoff lets his maudlin sentiment and fears run riot, under the guise of a "bitter-sweet romantic comedy", making it a woeful film.
It opens in familiar Poliakoff terrain: a London construction site. Here the reference is off-hand, a speedy way of telling us that Richard E. Grant's assistant bank manager, a pinstriped fogey with a frown, is discontented with the modern world. A few phone calls, some paper-thin portraits and a dash of sugary soundtrack later, Alex and his former student cronies are arriving in their village idyll. Food of Love continues in this vein, the plot moving forwards as if drawn by a magic marker: despite days of inactivity, costumes, a set and a performance appear out of thin air. The perfunctory plot could be forgiven if Food of Love were a parable or a satire, or even if it were a good-natured pastoral comedy. But it's really none of the above, while its characters are nothing more than stereotypes: the manic accountants with their mobile phones, the wise foreigner with an accent dipped in treacle, the offensive youths with their ghettoblaster.
In other such cases acting might have saved the day. Unfortunately, this cast perform as badly in the film as they do in the play-within-the-film. Richard E. Grant, though equally stranded by the script, is a cut above, but his presence (along with that of Paul McGann's brother Joe) simply serves to remind one of Withnail & I, making one wish he'd whip out his wellies and a couple of bottles of claret and start tormenting the villagers. It might have made things more bearable.
Credits
- Producer
- Karin Bamborough
- Screenplay
- Stephen Poliakoff
- Director of Photography
- Wit Dabal
- Editor
- Anne Sopel
- Production Designer
- Michael Pickwoad
- Music
- Adrian Johnston
- ©Channel Four Television Corporation/MP Productions
- Production Companies
- Channel Four Films presents in association with the Arts Council of England and MP Productions with the support of Canal + an Intrinsica Films production
- Supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of England
- Executive Producer
- David Rose
- Co-producer
- Michel Propper
- Line Producer
- John Downes
- Production Co-ordinator
- Pamela Allen
- Location Managers
- Bill Barringer
- Ian Aegis
- Assistant Directors
- Mike Higgins
- Kate Hazell
- Matthew Penry-Davey
- Script Supervisor
- Ceri Evans-Cooper
- Casting Director
- Ann Fielden
- Camera Operator
- Peter Versey
- Art Director
- Jeremy Bear
- Costume Designer
- Pam Tait
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Eleanor Appleby
- Chief Make-up
- Natacha Bernet
- Juliana Mendes-Ebden
- Chief Hairdresser
- Annemarie Huck
- Titles
- Capital FX (London)
- Orchestra
- Electra Strings
- Conductor:
- Nick Ingman
- Music Recordist
- Steve Parr
- Music Consultant
- Roger Watson
- Soundtrack
- "Free Spirit (Slow Burn)" by James Brown, performed by Orchestra JB; "Giant Above" by Jonathan J. Jeczalik, Bob Kraushaar, performed by Art of Silence; "One Shot Chilla" by Joseph Crawley Cang, Aswad, performed by Aswad; "Popsick" by Shannon Wright, performed by Crowsdell; "Night in My Veins" by Chrissie Hynde, Tom
- Kelly, Billy Steinberg, performed by The Pretenders
- Sound Recordist
- Ian Munro
- Dubbing Mixers
- Hugh Strain
- Clive Pendry
- Sound Editor
- Zane Hayward
- Dialogue Editor
- Phil Barnes
- ADR
- Editor:
- Phil Bothamley
- Cast
- Richard E. Grant
- Alex Salmon
- Nathalie Baye
- Michèle
- Joe McGann
- Sam
- Juliet Aubrey
- Madeline
- Lorcan Cranitch
- Luke
- Penny Downie
- Mary
- Holly Davidson
- Jessica
- Tameka Empson
- Alice
- John Ramm
- Donald
- Mark Tandy
- Robin
- Sylvia Syms
- Mrs Harvey-Brown
- John Waterhouse
- Mick
- Ian Lindsay
- Fincham
- Richard Beale
- William
- Paula Bacon
- Diane
- Nicola Duffett
- Angela
- Rupert Penry-Jones
- head office
- Barry McCarthy
- bank manager
- Scott Ransome
- Royal Theatre director
- Richard Dixon
- Brian
- Julie Teal
- Sarah
- Elizabeth Banks
- Louise
- Alec Linstead
- Fincham's brother
- Amerjit Deu
- hospital doctor
- Ian Peck
- prison warder
- Liz Moscrop
- Deddie Davies
- village women
- Jade Davidson
- Madeline's daughter
- Sarah Howe
- nanny
- Charlotte Emmerson
- secretary
- Hubert Rees
- red-faced man
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Film Four Distributors
- 9,795 feet
- 108 minutes 51 seconds
- Dolby
- In Colour