Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, 2005

It seems awfully mean-spirited to pick on poor, old Mrs. Palfrey--what did she ever do to hurt anyone?--but I'm afraid this is a movie with some charm, lots of sentiment, a plot with some gaping holes, and a LOT of high-gloss. A sort of updated, British "Harold & Maude", but more sentimental and far less comic, this is a movie that's highly predictable. Every turn of the plot is telegraphed before it happens, either by foreshadowing in the dialogue or the score. Joan Plowright, playing an apparently extremely wealthy woman, appears to have spent every moment off-camera having her hair and makeup done. She is the most glamorous widow imaginable, and her eye makeup is never smudged, even on her deathbed. Rupert Friend is the elegant, yet bohemian, young friend who just happens to be a writer and has committed the same poetry to memory as Mrs. Palfrey, thus binding them together. Other characters are caricatures, for the most part, though again, they're played with charm, with the noteworthy exception of Lorcan O'Toole. Mr. O'Toole, who plays Mrs. Palfrey's loathsome and neglectful grandson, seems to be the nephew of one of the film's producers. I base this only on the fact that his acting is some of the worst I've seen outside a high school auditorium.

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