Livre d'Or

I really appreciate this thinky comment, late isn't an issue at all cos I get notifications anyway.

I agree that a long relationship coming to an end can sometimes be a kind of "happy" ending, and yes, people realizing that the relationship they're in is not really what they want can be a positive thing. But the film just felt really mean. I mean, Nighy's Mr Ainslie was moderately sympathetic, a bit of a charmless pedant but you see him starting to express his sense of humour and suppressed enthusiasm. And he gets together with Dench's character who is as delightful as any of her roles.

But Wilton's Jean Ainslie seemed to get very little sympathy at all, she was merely an object of ridicule. There's no sympathy for her finding herself impoverished in retirement or finding it hard to adjust to her Indian situation. And she's not even dutiful, she throws herself at Dashwood and only avoids having an affair because he tells her he's gay, and the narrative is to me unpleasantly gleeful over her humiliation. (Which made me wonder how the script expected that to play out if he happened to be straight; is he even allowed to say, I'm sorry, I'm not attracted to you / I'm not interested in having an affair with a married woman?) So I was glad that Mrs A got what she wanted in terms of her daughter's business making money after all so that she could retire comfortably and pursue her rather narrow and snobbish interests, but I just felt like the narrative was unkind to her, if you see what I mean?