 Dames Judi Dench & Maggie Smith directed by Chas. Dance Review created: 09/02/07(updated 09/06/07) 53 of 53 people found this review helpful.
Famous British actor, Charles Dance, gives us his directorial debut with beloved British Dames Judi Dench & Maggie Smith, in a screen adaptation of the short story by William J. Locke.
Senior sisters Ursula (Dench) & Janet (Smith) cohabitate by the sea in Cornwall, in the 1930's. As sisters, they are quite different & often at odds with each other. Thus, their relatively typical British lives in retirement are spiced up by that subtle friction.
During one of their gazes out the window towards the ocean beating up against the craggy rocks, Ursula spots something unusual on the sand. As the 2 elderly women approach the object, they find it's a living young man who's washed ashore.
Ursula decides to take him in & nurse him to health much to Janet's chagrin. He can't speak English so they have no idea who he is or what his background is, either.
But, it's not long before they figure out the young man's (Daniel Bruhl) a budding, undiscovered violinist from Poland named Andreas. A neighboring visitor, a gorgeous artist (Natasha McElhorne), immediately spots Andreas's exceptional talent because her own brother is a master. Tension builds between characters as they compete for their positions in relation to the rescued violinist.
Their housekeeper (Miriam Margolyes) provides comic relief in an emotional drama that surely is fitting for 2 of the greatest actors of the 20th & 21st centuries. What could have been such an ordinary little film that got buried in a box is brought to life by extraordinary character acting, period depiction precision & scrumptious classical violin music. If you like this film, see Bette Davis & Lillian Gish in "The Whales of August," which just might be this one's superior!
Review ID: 10000000004274394  Thank you for voting. If your vote meets our guidelines, it will be posted within 24 hours. You cannot vote on the helpfulness of a review you wrote. Your request cannot be processed at this time. Please try again later.  A film like a Moving painting. Enchanting English Tale Review created: 10/18/06(updated 01/20/09) 9 of 10 people found this review helpful.
Okay, so I'm a push over for British films. A typical slice of English life in the 1930s. Two elderly sisters living alone on an enchanted hillside cottage. Find a Polish boy washed to shore. They look after him, and the one sister, falls in love with him. After all no matter how old we get, our taste for the opposite sex never really changes. She, Ursula, dreams of him, unrequited love, she knows its wrong, but she adores him. When he is lured away by a beautiful woman, it breaks her heart. Another great film to cozy up to on those rainy nights. I love that every frame of the film is like a painting. All the senses are touched by this sweet film. Watch it. Max Rainet.
8-6-2008 I just re-watched this wonderful story. Maggie Smith and Judy Dench are absolutely marvelous. This time I watched the documentary in the bonus features on the dvd. It talks about the film and how it came to be. Don't forget to watch this too, a real bonus for movie fans. MR
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