Les Bostoniennes

Well meant production from the magical Merchant/Ivory/Jhabvala team. This one was made before they hit their stride, however. The first mistake was casting Christopher Reeve in the lead. He always looks like he's acting, there's nothing natural about it. His performance here is in par with cheap 70's pornography acting. He is supposedly classically trained as an actor, but I guess anyone who pays for and attends acting classes can say the same. Some have it and some don't, he doesn't. The costumes, art direction and sets are all lavish and appealing. The dialog is far too updated to make one believe that it's taking place in another century, it's almost like a high school production in that aspect. Redgrave and Marchand both give good performances, nothing remarkable at all, but acceptable. The rest of the cast is a mish-mash of mostly b-listers. Scriptwriter Jhabvala has proved herself time and again to be quite the artist, but the script here is flat. Perhaps the book it was based on is this dull and unconvincing. I was left simply unaffected by any message they were trying to convey about the period. I'm a fanatic when it comes to Merchant/Ivory pictures, but this one just didn't cut it. It seems they were more in their element with their amazing and opulent European productions. The quality of their American films seems to be quite cheap in production in comparison. I'm simply left wondering what a masterpiece this could have been had it been set in and filmed in England. If you're an Ivory/Merchant fan, stick with their better titles "A Room With A View" & "Sense And Sensibility", they both surpass this effort by leagues.

The other reviews really don't get that this is a very subtle expose on gay relationships in this era. Was Henry James gay? Did he live his perspective through this story of the Bostonians…?. And imagine writing about women's rights movement intertwined with gay women of the day- a man writing in the 1800's! WoW – how progressive even today in 2011 people still debate the legitimacy of gay relationships (not me-please note I am happily married heterosexual). This is in amazing film. Period accurate and an incredible story about the dynamic of class – to be the lover of a women of means but who is really drawn to a traditional marriage – if he has the means to support her. Watch this from that perspective. It's remarkable to think that this was written in the late 1800's and that this film was done in the 1980s – so way ahead of its time. And then look at Christopher Reeve and how he took this movie to break out of his Superman stereo type…. Pretty incredible. I think the naysayers here really didn't get the historical significance of this film. Its an amazing film. Thank you Merchant and Ivory…you are amazing.

Henry James has not been an easy author to bring to the screen. The Heiress has been one glorious exception and even with the fine production values that Merchant/Ivory brought to The Bostonians it still doesn't quite measure up to The Heiress in glorious black and white.

That being said The Bostonians is great window on the world of Henry James and the upper class society in which he moved in New York and Boston. James was a great evaluator of human nature even of the love that dare not speak its name.

Stripped of all the trimmings about the emerging women's movement what we've got here is a triangle with a lesbian twist. Vanessa Redgrave got an Oscar nomination for Best Actress with her portrayal as an intellectual leader who feels she hasn't the voice to articulate the issues surrounding suffrage and all the other inequalities women endured back then. She latches on to a protégé in the person of Madeline Potter recently shilling for her faith healer father Wesley Addy. What she cannot, dare not articulate is the physical attraction she's feeling for Potter.

Redgrave is simply marvelous as the frustrated, possibly even latent lesbian. We're never sure if she has or will ever consummate her feelings. This is Boston of the 1870s-1880s where such things are frowned there even more than most places in the USA.

Vanessa's rival for Potter is Christopher Reeve a devilishly handsome young blade from the south who has come north to seek his fortune as a lawyer. As for Potter she's not sure of what she wants or even that Redgrave's interest in her is more than politics.

Linda Hunt and Jessica Tandy have a pair of good roles, The Bostonians is great in terms of roles for women. Tandy is an aged old soul who rejoices in the changes in America she's seen in the 19th century of which she remembers most of. Hunt is her nurse/companion who is a shrewd observer of the events around her and Tandy.

The Bostonians also got a nomination for Costume Design and the shooting in Boston and New York are fine. Boston has kept a lot of the same look Henry James knew in certain areas of the city and James Ivory made great use of Central Park in New York and some of the structures there that were put up in the time of Henry James.

I won't say what happens other than to say that Vanessa Redgrave does find it in herself to articulate her cause. As for the rest you have to watch this very fine production to find out.

I've always been interested in the James adaptations,and in the Ivory films.

The Bostonians ' first half's calligraphy and distinguished Callophily is pleasing,then the groundless length becomes oppressive,annoying and exasperating,so that finally I loathed this movie.That's no way to treat the viewers!The unjustified and intolerable length does not serve the narration,not the atmosphere,nor the characters' development. Wasted footage!I began by liking The Bostonians ,I finished by loathing this movie that goes nowhere.(James was quite loquacious and blabbed with a senile joy,and the movie gets also very talkative.)

Reeve smiles intelligently and even ironically from time to time,which kind of contradicts his supposed plainness.He acts somehow beside the point,but I guess the idea of introducing him as a tom cat with transient smiles was meant to cheer a little this overlong H. James adaptation,and as a needed antidote for the crabby Mrs. Redgrave.Reeve is almost brave in feigning some real interest for Madeleine Potter's character.

The two actresses I liked are:(1)Nancy New (as "Olive Chancellor"'s far more attractive sister);(2)Nancy Marchand.

Mrs. Redgrave is a broody,headstrong,crabbed,exalted and poisonous,felonious damsel ,as interesting as Lenin's books.As a matter of fact,this poor woman looks rather feeble-minded.One hopes in vain she'll have her fling with "Verena Tarrant".She is here as cranky as ever.

Mrs. Madeleine Potter is very uninteresting, insipid,and as fascinating as a sausage.

Towards the final of The Bostonians ,I swore at the director, at the scriptwriter and at the entire cast.I would seize Ivory by his ears and force him watch many Bruce Lee movies and many Jackie Chan movies,so much that he gets able to make at least something that well-thought.

The whole plot is utterly nauseating.The characters are as viscid as the mollusks.This makes the movie a morass.This is a show,don't ask me to judge it as if it were a novel.I'm talking about Ivory's show,not about James' novel.The most annoying fact is that Mrs. Redgrave seems to enjoy her role;this is unacceptable!(But it is also obvious that no member of the cast is able to get what this show is about.This may serve,though in a paradoxical way,as a justification for them all!These people (Reeve, Nancy Marchand and Nancy New) performed hoping there is a meaning they are not yet able to comprehend.)

Throughout the '80s and '90s, producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory were probably the foremost purveyors of highbrow cinema, often adapted from classic novels. One such example is "The Bostonians", from a Henry James novel. I've never read the novel - and almost certainly never will, given how long it takes me to get through books - but the movie is as solid as we would expect. It sounds as though Henry James treated his topics with subtlety, which would explain the depiction of what would've otherwise been a taboo topic in the 1800s.

Basically, the combination of the scenery, costumes, music and setting make this the sort of period piece that could only come from Merchant and Ivory. And because I can't resist, I gotta note the cast: Christopher Reeve, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Tandy, Nancy Marchand, Linda Hunt and Wallace Shawn.* In other words, it stars Superman, Julia, Miss Daisy, Livia Soprano, the cameraman during the Indonesian coup, and Vizzini/Rex/Young Sheldon's professor/the man who had dinner with Andre.

*Vanessa Redgrave later co-starred in an adaptation of Wallace Shawn's politically charged play "The Fever", co-starring Michael Moore and Angelina Jolie.