Relative Values
UK/USA 2000
Reviewed by David Jays
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
The Marshwood estate, England, 1954. Felicity, Countess of Marshwood, awaits the return of her son, the Earl of Marshwood, and his fiancée, a Hollywood star called Miranda Frayle. Felicity fears that Miranda may be unsuitable; her suspicions are confirmed when her personal maid Moxie reveals that Miranda is her long-estranged younger sister. Together with her bachelor friend Peter and her butler Crestwell, Felicity pretends that Moxie has come into an inheritance, thus allowing her to join the family at the dinner table. Moxie's relationship to Miranda will remain secret.
During the evening, Miranda spins squalid stories of her English childhood (including the supposed death of her alcoholic sister). Moxie, irate, finally reveals her identity. Meanwhile, Miranda's co-star and former lover Don Lucas arrives to win her back and cracks appear in the engagement. The next morning Miranda and Don leave and peace is restored at Marshwood.
Review
Even in 1951, when it premiered on the London stage, Relative Values appeared old-fashioned. Only five years later Grace Kelly was to marry into European royalty, yet Noël Coward's play wrings its hands at social divisions threatened with dissolution. The screenplay by actors Paul Rattigan and Michael Walker cuts Coward's notorious closing speech, a toast "to the final inglorious disintegration of the most unlikely dream that ever troubled the foolish heart of man - Social Equality!" But an antediluvian snobbery nonetheless stipples this slight movie.
In this environment of hairbreadth social distinctions, the difference between lady's maid and secretary-companion is infinitesimal yet absolute. Sophie Thompson's tremulous maid and Stephen Fry's butler crave a world in which everyone knows their place - in their case, perching on the very edge of the Countess' sofa.
The only argument against the rigidly class-bound dimension of Coward's play is implicitly contained in the choice of Julie Andrews to play the Countess. Celebrated as a nanny in Mary Poppins (1964) and a governess in The Sound of Music (1965), here Andrews finally establishes herself among the aristocracy. A gracious vision in blue and green chiffon, she deploys a careworn smile as she sweetly campaigns against her son's engagement.
The design is squintingly bright and sunny: ox-blood walls in the kitchen and drawing room are the closest director Eric Styles gets to hinting at the ugly human passions bristling beneath the polite surfaces. Otherwise, Styles prefers to focus sympathetically on female tears - it is her shimmering, watery profile that redeems Miranda, the aspiring movie-star fiancée of the Countess' son.
As often in cinematic raids on theatre, the pleasures are in the performances. Sophie Thompson gives Moxie an almost operatic dither and Colin Firth plays the Countess' cherubic and mischievous confidant Peter in camp little cravats, his confirmed bachelor status established by some additions to the screenplay ("The fleet is in town, and I hate to disappoint").
Early in his career Coward relished shady ladies who married into the stuffy aristocracy, but by the time he wrote Relative Values his sympathies had congealed. Jeanne Tripplehorn plays Miranda like a sultry Jane Russell, a louche brunette travelling in a whoosh of fast cars and scarlet lipstick - unlike her sedate hosts who only leave their stately home for church on Sunday. Where she has a confident and knowing relationship with mirrors, Moxie regards her reflection with terror as she is made up for dinner. For her, impersonation - she has to pretend she's come into an inheritance to expose her sister Miranda - is an ordeal of displacement that only the brazen can achieve.
Dreaming of Joseph Lees, Styles' debut, also explored fraught personal relationships in the 50s, but it is still hard to see why this material attracted him. Perhaps he was lured by its backhanded tribute to the strange potency of cheap movies. Here it is only Alice, the button-eyed Welsh maid (Anwen Carlisle), who understands what is truly happening. She spends her leisure time sitting "in the Odeon, sucking sweets and gaping at a lot of nonsense" and refuses to believe that the passion depicted between Miranda and her co-star Don in such films as A Kiss in the Dark doesn't slip into real life. And she is, of course, quite right.
In this Alice is like the inquisitive housemaid in Coward's Blithe Spirit who unwittingly propels the narrative. David Lean's film, together with Brief Encounter (both 1945), remain the most winning versions of Coward's plays. Here the servants behave like a film audience, gazing through the windows as Miranda and Don launch into a fight scene by the pool. They, like the girl guides hiding out in the shrubbery to glimpse their idols, attest to the appeal of big-screen gawping, while all around pay homage to the masquerade of a pre-democratic Britain.
Credits
- Director
- Eric Styles
- Producer
- Christopher Milburn
- Screenplay
- Paul Rattigan
- Michael Walker
- Based on the play by Noël Coward
- Director of Photography
- Jimmy Dibling
- Editor
- Caroline Limmer
- Production Designer
- Humphrey Jaeger
- Music/Music Conductor
- John Debney
- ©Replyearth Limited
- Production Companies
- Midsummer Films and Overseas Film Group present in association with The Isle of Man Film Commission
- A Christopher Milburn production
- Developed in association with Hallelujah Productions
- Executive Producers
- Steve Christian
- Chris Harris
- Co-executive Producers
- Francesca Barra
- Maud Nadler
- Alex Swan
- Associate Producers
- Paul Rattigan
- Michael Walker
- Production Supervisor
- Liam Foster
- Production Co-ordinator
- Page Wingrove
- London Co-ordinator
- Jemma Shuttleworth
- Location Manager
- John Hinnigan
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Liz Pearson
- Co-ordinator:
- Stuart Shanks
- Assistant Directors
- Jon Williams
- Huw Jones
- Steffan Morris
- Script Supervisor
- Kirstie Edgar
- Casting
- UK Director:
- Celestia Fox
- US Director:
- Amanda Mackey Johnson
- ADR:
- Louis Elman
- 2nd Unit Camera Operator
- Martin Hume
- Digital Effects
- Men in White Coats
- Graphic Artist:
- Mark Warbrook
- Associate Editor
- Ian Seymour
- Art Director
- Kate Evenden
- Costume Designer
- Nic Ede
- Costume Supervisor
- Heather Blurton
- Wardrobe Master
- Miles Johnson
- Chief Hair/Make-up Artist
- Julie Van Praag
- Make-up Artist
- Sarah Astley
- Titles Designer/Creator
- Phil Attfield
- Front Titles
- Men in White Coats
- End Credits
- Howell Opticals
- End Credits Design
- Spectra Titles
- Music Performed by
- Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- Solo Pianist
- Simon Chamberlain
- Music Orchestration
- Brad Dechter
- Music Editors
- Thomas Carlson
- Chris Cozens
- Recording Engineer
- Mike Ross-Trevor
- Soundtrack
- "Almost Like Being in Love" - The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Rick Riso; "All My Love" - Patti Page
- Sound Facilities Supervisor
- Richard Conway
- Sound Recordist
- Phil Edward
- Dubbing Mixer
- Tim Alban
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Bernard O'Reilly
- Dialogue Editor
- Julian Dodwell
- ADR
- Engineers:
- Paul Harris
- Ralph Kelsey
- Additional Recordist:
- Angie Stanghetti
- Editor:
- Julian Dodwell
- Foley
- Artists:
- Felicity Cottrell
- Jack Stew
- Recordist/Editor:
- Barnarby Smyth
- Animal Wranglers
- Stephen Swinnerton
- Jane Pinches
- Animal Dramatics
- Horse Wranglers
- Caroline Stephenson
- Susan Denny
- Cast
- Julie Andrews
- Felicity, Countess of Marshwood
- Edward Atterton
- Nigel, Earl of Marshwood
- William Baldwin
- Don Lucas
- Colin Firth
- Peter
- Stephen Fry
- Crestwell
- Sophie Thompson
- Moxie
- Jeanne Tripplehorn
- Miranda Frayle
- Stephanie Beacham
- Elizabeth
- Gaye Brown
- Lady Hayling
- Anwen Carlisle
- Alice
- Kathryn Dimery
- Mrs Crane
- Charles Edwards
- Philip Bateman-Tobias
- Michael Higgs
- film director
- John Hinnigan
- stable boy
- Patrick Marley
- Hawkins
- Richard Nichols
- Frank
- David Schaal
- the baddie
- Lynne Seymour
- air stewardess
- Kay Stephens
- Caroline
- Lauren Stocks
- Amy
- Aaron Zorzo
- reporter
- Certificate
- PG
- Distributor
- Alliance Releasing (UK)
- 8,021 feet
- 89 minutes 8 seconds
- Dolby
- Colour by
- DeLuxe