 |
| Julie Walters in Intimate Relations |
Cast: Julie Walters, Rupert Graves, Laura Sadler, Matthew Walker, Holly Aird, Les Dennis, Elizabeth McKechnie, James Aidan, Michael Bertenshaw, Judy Clifton. Screenplay: Philip Goodhew. Cinematography: Andrés Garretón. Production design: Caroline Greville-Morris. Music: Laurence Schragge.
Given that the characters Philip Goodhew has written for them don't make a lot of sense, Julie Walters, Rupert Graves, and Laura Sadler do a fine job of just holding on as Intimate Relations morphs from black comedy satire to brutal based-on-a-real-crime drama. The satire is directed at a familiar target: middle class sexual hypocrisy in 1950s Britain. It's laid on thick from the start with Rosemary Clooney's 1951 hit "Come on-a My House" on the soundtrack as Harold Guppy (Graves), just out of the navy, becomes a lodger in the house of primly respectable Marjorie Beasley (Walters). Marjorie is married to Stanley (Matthew Walker), a one-legged World War I veteran, with whom she no longer sleeps, telling the horny Stanley that she's been advised against it for "medical reasons." Their youngest daughter, Joyce (Sadler), who has just turned 13, also lives with them -- in fact, she shares a bed with her mother. But it's not long before Marjorie creeps into Harold's room and bed. And it's barely a moment before Joyce joins them, pretending to sleep as nature takes its course with Harold and Marjorie. For a while, this situation is played for some queasy laughs, but the volatility of the ménage is obvious. To say that Intimate Relations doesn't work is an understatement, though the film has admirers who are willing to overlook the inconsistency of tone and the absence of plausible backstories for its uniformly unlikable characters.
