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.

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...

I rented this film because I wanted to see Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland act in tandem once more, almost two decades after their bravura performances in "Don't Look Now" They did not disappoint the second time around. The acting was superb, which is to be expected, but the story is also well-developed and especially in this post 9/11 climate,timely. Films such as this, which can deal with the larger themes of terrorism and political unrest while still being able to fully develop the more personal themes of love, loss and redemption among middle-aged lovers are rare; films that can do this well are rarer still. I highly recommend "The Railway Station Man." If only Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie were paired more often.......

Christine

Parts of this movie are really enjoyable, but the end result is so disappointing, I can't recommend The Railway Station Man. The upside is Julie Christie. She's so adorable in this movie, from her spunky personality to her cozy knit socks, from her plaid skirts to her swing dancing. Had her character been placed in a different, more even story, I'd want to watch more movies about her. She raises her son alone, after her husband was killed in a tragic mistaken identity shooting, and it's no wonder she catches the attention of most folks in her small, Irish town. With her son grown, she feels free to seek out more than just her hobby painting for fun. She meets the badly crippled railway station man, Donald Sutherland, and they hit it off. Will her son understand her need for romance? And will her son be safe, as he starts to get involved with the wrong crowd?

If I were to ascribe one word to this movie, it would be uneven. There's full frontal male nudity as John Lynch prances around in the ocean, an unexplained thaw in Donald's coldness towards Julie, an unexplained chill after Julie decides she likes Donald, a strange flirtation with her son's friend, and random IRA violence. And why is Donald continually cast in movies where he's supposed to be British? In this one, he has artificial red hair but no trace of an accent. Again, why? But Julie is cute as a button with wonderful energy. If I lived in that town, I would love to be her friend!