A beautiful house in Paris is the setting for this troublesome drama where the presence of a little old lady (Maggie Smith at her most passive/aggressive gentleness) turns the new owner's (Kevin Kline) world upside down. He inherited the house from his late father and discovers much to his confusion that as the owner, he must pay rent to Smith and her rather serious daughter, Kristin Scott Thomas, who has enough troubles of her own to add him to her list of problems. Smith, it is quickly revealed, was an acquaintance of her father's, and as the lines of communication open between the three, more facts are revealed that turn Kline back to the bottle, break up Scott's own relationship with a married man, and reveal secrets that are heartbreaking and often shocking.
You can never go wrong with any movie that stars the now legendary Smith, the British Katharine Hepburn, whose tenacity to continue working has made her beloved. This isn't a Jean Brodie Maggie Smith, nor a Dora Charles Maggie Smith of "Murder By Death", and she is as far from her Lady Violet Crawley as she is from Little Lord Fauntleroy. A character of gentle breeding and much class, she teaches English to Europeans of other cultures living in Paris, and in one scene, must explain to one of her pupils of the very sexually explicit meaning of the book they are reading. There is no shock on her face, just minor amusement, and even when she confronts Kline with his return to the bottle, it is with much tenderness and concern. It turns out she knows more information as to why he drinks, and when Kline shares his most shocking secret with her, it is written on her face ever so briefly that her whole world is shattered because of it. The bond with Scott grows too, and they all learn that underneath their initial distrust of each other, they are now bonded forever.
This takes much patience to get into, but the three stars do their best to help the viewer maintain intentions. It is a gentle movie, almost nurturing in a way, and leaves the viewer with a very important lesson of how the generations create gaps simply because they unwillingly refuse to understand the older or younger ones. As old Rose said in "Titanic", "A woman's heart carries many secrets", and in the case of Smith's Mathilde Girard, she has more than her alleged 90 years can hold. The three give brilliant performances, almost quiet to the point where it seems like they are not at all acting. It's one of those sleeper movies that you'll have to sleep on to really be affected by it and one where your own relationships with older relatives, especially parents, will be forced out of whatever hiding spot they hold in your soul.
You can never go wrong with any movie that stars the now legendary Smith, the British Katharine Hepburn, whose tenacity to continue working has made her beloved. This isn't a Jean Brodie Maggie Smith, nor a Dora Charles Maggie Smith of "Murder By Death", and she is as far from her Lady Violet Crawley as she is from Little Lord Fauntleroy. A character of gentle breeding and much class, she teaches English to Europeans of other cultures living in Paris, and in one scene, must explain to one of her pupils of the very sexually explicit meaning of the book they are reading. There is no shock on her face, just minor amusement, and even when she confronts Kline with his return to the bottle, it is with much tenderness and concern. It turns out she knows more information as to why he drinks, and when Kline shares his most shocking secret with her, it is written on her face ever so briefly that her whole world is shattered because of it. The bond with Scott grows too, and they all learn that underneath their initial distrust of each other, they are now bonded forever.
This takes much patience to get into, but the three stars do their best to help the viewer maintain intentions. It is a gentle movie, almost nurturing in a way, and leaves the viewer with a very important lesson of how the generations create gaps simply because they unwillingly refuse to understand the older or younger ones. As old Rose said in "Titanic", "A woman's heart carries many secrets", and in the case of Smith's Mathilde Girard, she has more than her alleged 90 years can hold. The three give brilliant performances, almost quiet to the point where it seems like they are not at all acting. It's one of those sleeper movies that you'll have to sleep on to really be affected by it and one where your own relationships with older relatives, especially parents, will be forced out of whatever hiding spot they hold in your soul.