Plenty

PLENTY cast such a spell on me. It is one of those films which has a mood and tone all of its own. It is sombre, dreamy and elegaic. And it features a little seen, yet compelling and masterful central performance from Meryl Streep, who lights up the screen with the type of intelligence and female strength one laments the absence of in contemporary film.

Based on David Hare's play, PLENTY (like so much of his work) boasts wonderfully complex, multi-layered roles for women. Meryl Streep and Tracey Ullmann excel with the intelligent dialogue given to them by this incredible writer - and despite the plethora of strong male actors surrounding them, it is the women whose stories move and interest us the most.

What I love about PLENTY is that so much about it is anti-Hollywood. Its convoluted plot is often incoherent and dreamlike, its dependence upon memories and the co-existence of past and present present challenges for audiences who normally would be sign posted in the 'correct' direction. It has an impressionistic, hypnotic feel, and the film's characters, especially Susan, are unappologetic and potentially dislikeable people. Its narrative resoultion is ambiguous, refusing the closure of more traditional dramas. Here we have a film which refuses to pander to the demands of the mainstream, and for that it is to be applauded.

Is there anything new that any of us can say about Meryl Streep??? This is a must for admirers of the actress, and a must for anyone with a penchant for riveting, deeply intelligent acting. Meryl grabs the part by the throat, investing Susan with a compelling defiance, a fierce intelligence, a sensuality, and a restrained beauty. Watch out for the dinner party scene. I forgot there was anyone else in the room (a room which included Sir John Gielgud and Charles Dance!) Such command, such depth, and such naturalness. This is an actress of phenomenal depth and magnificent expression. And such wonderful chemistry with the other actors! (Even Charles Dance who reportedly was a bit of a diva on set!! I wonder if this helped to enhance the fiery antagonsim between them on screen?)

In sum, PLENTY is deeply complicated, but give it time, watch it more than once and you will be rewarded. For its thoughtful direction, its searing, intricate dialogue and its mesmerising acting - this is a film that deserves to be seen by much larger audiences. Bravo Queen Meryl!!

There is now and has been since 1985 a lot of conjecture as to what this film is about. The reaction I had after I first saw this film was one of the first times I was genuinely depressed after I had seen a film. Depressed by an outside force not from within myself. Women in my family were of the similar age Meryl Streep's character of Susan Traherne...so I asked them how they felt during the war and after. Their candid replies (not prompted by any film discussion either) led me to believe PLENTY was a state of mind, a post war feeling of "winner's feast after survival"...I came quickly to realize Susan Traherne, her men, her lovers, her descent into disillusionment, unhappiness, into madness, irrationality. the realization she had to live with herself and her gauche cruelty, snobbery, foolishness and self deceit... was about Great Britain herself, Susan is the Nation, Brittania. PLENTY is possibly the saddest film I have ever seen, on par with MILLION DOLLAR BABY but for different reasons. I also think Susan represents the women baby boomers in every country had as their Mother, who after taking a deep sunny breath of freedom after struggle found that their family and suburbia was a prison and that post war servitude and struggle was the hell they never reckoned with. PLENTY is a great title for this film of 'the promised land" that turned into a supermarket car park. I never want to see it again. Such is the heartbreaking success of this production. PLENTY is a major achievement in film making and it's emotional reality is absolutely crushing.... like Susan's soul and promise was crushed by post war plainness. THE HOURS goes into the same territory in the 1950s sequences with Julieanne Moore wanting to suicide. Susan's sex scene during the Queen's coronation is the cruelest, most superb observation of the relationship between the Royal family and Britain. PLENTY is a character study and not a popcorn movie. Not all films are 'flicks' as some people demand they be. THE FIGHT CLUB and the effect on 30 year old men of today of the pressures commercial modern living as personified by Ed Norton in his famous "ikea" speech is a good equivalent for today's crushed male soul.

"Plenty" needs to be seen on a big screen in a theatre; more than most, this is a film that suffers in its translation to a TV screen. (Among other things, there are scenes that are simply ruined in the format change--like the hilarious scene of Streep and Sting on a sofa as Queen Elizabeth's coronation plays live on the tellie!) Sound is also important to fully appreciating the film--like the constant reminders of the sound of opening parachutes that echo throughout the story.

It's easy to understand why the film was not a box office success; it focuses on a woman who is not terribly likeable, but I contend that it is a movie rich in observations that transcend post-war Britain and the borish woman who develops in that milieu. "Plenty" is (among other things) about passion, diplomacy, memory, self-deception and the great expectations that are so easily squashed in our unheroic modern world. The film (and Hare's play before it) revolves around a crucial scene brilliantly played by a startlingly mad Streep and Ian McKellan's icily insightful foreign service officer--well past the film's mid-point. After his long-in-coming dose of reality, Streep's Susan takes a tailspin into the movie's melancholy conclusion. It's not an easy film to "enjoy," but the uniformly brilliant performances from Streep, Charles Dance, Tracy Ullman and John Gielgud make the film fascinating to watch and rewarding to have experienced.

In "Plenty" (***1/2). Meryl Streep gives one of her greatest performances in the complex role of "Susan Traherne", an idealistic young Englishwoman whose compulsive need to stir things up comes in conflict with a crippling lack of courage. We follow her life from her days in the French Resistance at the end of World War II to her professional and emotional decline during the 60's. Her key line: "I want to change the world, but I don't know how." The supporting cast, production and direction are superb, and the score by Bruce Smeaton is hauntingly beautiful. The character functions as both a metaphor for postwar England and a real flesh and blood human being, although it's a flaw that we don't learn more about her family background, apparently an upper class one, which might have contributed more to an understanding of her later, often perverse, behavior. The only two people she seems to have in the world are Charles Dance, playing her long-suffering diplomat husband and Tracy Ullmann, wonderful as her free-spirited best friend, probably the kind of person Susan would like to have been if it were not for her "fatal weakness": she likes "losing control." This film has been newly released in its original Panavision dimension on DVD and looks terrific. Seeing it the way it should be seen only enhances my opinion that it's one of the most underrated movies of the 80's.

I was moved by this film. I was aware of Kate Nelligan's performance as Susan Traherne in the original stage version, a lusty, glowing former Resistance heroine with a shattered psyche. In the film, Meryl Streep focused on a beautiful, disarming character's inconsistent control of the crazy energy lurking underneath.

Plenty could be re-released today on a double bill with the recently released Brothers. Both show the long-term effects of war, fought overtly and covertly, on combatants and those who love them. It is no secret that the soldier in Brothers wreaks havoc on his family after returning from one tour of duty too many in Iraq. "People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to."

So, one way to view and appreciate Susan Traherne and her effect on her husband, friends and co-workers is from this perspective within the context of their cultures.