Late spring calls for a visit to the video store to compensate for the flood of
seasonal mediocrity in the theaters. “Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont” will burrow
into your core. At first it will probably amuse and then delight you. But as it
draws finally to a close, you may try to escape its emotional power; that won’t
work. It’s authentic, and it will leave a mark.
If you are a
grandchild, you will be enlightened. If you are a son or daughter, you may
rethink things; if you are a grandmother among grandmothers, you may well ache
at the familiarity of the bewilderment that has engulfed Sarah Palfrey (Joan
Plowright).
After time
and nature have reduced her to the role of spectator, Mrs. Palfrey reminds us,
“I have been somebody’s daughter, somebody’s wife, and somebody’s mother. I want
to be myself now.” She won’t marry again, she says to a fellow Claremont lodger
who is old but eager, “but I have plenty of room for friends; will you be my
friend?” A friend is the finest thing of all.
“Oh dear,”
she observes on first seeing the shabby, tiny room without a view. She enters
the dining room on the first night of her new life in beautifully subdued black,
prepared for whatever festivities may await her. She is hoping, we know, for the
sparkling conversation and good food promised in the newspaper ad that drew her
here. Instead, as she approaches her table for one, she sees other lone diners
who are living in whatever private worlds their minds afford them
Mrs. Palfrey
silences the dining room on the night she enters with Ludo, the young writer she
has asked to impersonate her absent grandson. Ludo (Rupert Friend), an
impoverished writer and poet with tastes akin to those of Mrs. Palfrey’s beloved
late husband Arthur, observes aptly, “We’re trapped in a Terrence Rattigan
play.” They walk, they talk, they read Blake and Wordsworth aloud. And finally
she steers the lonely young man toward a lovely young girl. “Mrs. Palfrey knew
it was time to move on – but to where and for what?” It is that question that
stabs every older person in a given audience. What now, and why?
This is a
lovely British movie acted in a burst of touching chemistry by Joan Plowright
and the supremely pure Rupert Friend. He was for her the reminder of the
romantic and cerebral life she and her husband had shared. She was for him the
undemanding talking pal he needed while writing his book. Joan Plowright’s Mrs.
Palfrey is dazzling. She is sharp, utterly without complaint, and very brave.
Each time she comes into that dining room she is dressed in a simple elegance
that she creates with an array of scarves tied this way and that, a five strand
set of pearls and glorious clothes. This is something she knows how to do. She
is ready for her new life - but where, and for what?
Copyright (c) Illusion