The Railway Station Man

Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland feel as if they have been a part of my life for 60 years and I was intrigued to find this little known film being shown on BBC4 recently.

Shot on the coast of Ireland, the scenery is spectacular and together with the two stars' acting, there is a lot to recommend. The sad part is that it was shown to commemorate the recent death of Donald Sutherland and for the downbeat ending. Having said that, it brought back youthful memories of how mesmerised I was with Julie Christie 60 years ago in movies like Darling, Far From The Madding Crowd and The Go-Between amongst many. One of the most beautiful British actresses of all time in my opinion, Julie plays an amateur Irish landscape painter who was widowed by an IRA bomb. She has a son she doesn't get on with too well and one day meets an American man who is looking after a disused railway station office locally. They gradually get to know each other in casual meetings until one day at a jumble sale he persuades her to dance to a record.

Beautifully acted by both stars, who you may remember won great acclaim together many years before in Don't Look Now.

This is well worth seeing, if not for the sombre story, then for the acting and cinematography.

This movie stars two actors at the top of their game, Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. Oddly, the British actress plays an Irishwoman and the Canadian actor plays an American. Regardless, they are both excellent in the film...and it's a shame the writing isn't better.

Helen lost her husband when he was accidentally murdered by the IRA. Oops. Some time later, Roger comes into her life and slowly the sparks begin to fly. You wonder if the couple stand a chance...and the answer is NO!

This movie, though very well acted, really frustrated me. While it sure seems like a romance, the ending is so abrupt and unromantic it left me frustrated. I can only assume the same was true for others, as you'd expect a film like this to have a higher overall score.

Watching this movie felt like going to a fancy restaurant...and instead of bringing you the dessert you ordered, the waiter just pelts you with dead fish. It's unexpected and most unwelcome at the end.

What a load of rubbish.

Donald Sutherland with dyed orange hair - which it appears he must have cut himself - and a ridiculously long artificial lower arm with a hook on the end, tries to seduce Julie Christie. She adopts a rictus grin as a bizarre means of appearing to be Irish. At one point he pulls up her skirt with his hook and appears to have sex even though she is still wearing her woolly tights. When they do go to bed he still keeps his shirt on. The whole thing seems to have been filmed in a day, as Donald always appears in exactly the same clothes, and every time we meet the IRA man from Dublin, he is eating a Twirl. A truly dreadful film never far from becoming as farcical as Father Ted.

The movie reunited Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, twenty years after Don't Look Now.

Christie plays widow Helen Cuffe, who moved to a remote part of Ireland after the death of her husband. He was wrongly shot by terrorists.

Now some years later, Helen still lives alone with her son Jack who is now skirting with IRA activities. She spends her time painting, reflecting on her passionless marriage with her murdered husband.

Into her life comes Roger Hawthorne (Donald Sutherland.) An American loner, with a deformed hand who is restoring a small railway station.

After a gruff start, both find solace in each other. Until her son returns with a terrorist ringleader.

Unlike Don't Look Now, there is very little spark between the characters and even the screenplay. Although it has an explosive ending.

You sense this will be a bleak, sparse movie. It is also badly edited. The abrupt shift when the two main characters dance to a rock n roll song to the next scene seemed all wrong to me.

This was a BBC Film and when it was shown on its Screen Two strand. It received the lowest audience for a Screen Two film. Rather surprising given the stars involved.

So this film came on just at the perfect time, for me and my wife to watch it, this is vary rare that we would watch a film during the week, but maybe a good omen?

The scenery is obviously stunning, giving a beautiful, yet stark setting for the characters to develop and the story to unfold.

I liked the minimal themes, there was no clutter that needed removing.

Acting was great - pace was fine, but for me, so much time was (rightly) spent watching the relationships developing, that the ending was rushed. It deserved more than that. Plus a character deliberately disturbs the couple at the end, when they knew not to... so it doesn't really make sense. It's as if the director thought, you know what let's just do this and we can all go home...

Shame, as not really seen anything like this before... loved the tucked in denim shirts though... very 90s...