Dangerous Liaisons (1988) ****

Gossip and flirting were major occupations for French aristocracy in the 18th century, but in the case of the Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) and the Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) — erstwhile lovers who enjoy playing the field and recounting their exploits — ennui is temporarily banished by a wicked wager about whether the Vicomte will succeed in seducing a respectable, religious married woman, the prize being that the Marquise will allow him back into her own bed if he manages it. With chilling callousness they play with other people’s lives and emotions, seemingly heartless and yet both vulnerable to the pains of love behind their chilling facades. This unsettling tale from a novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, exquisitely dramatised by playwright Christopher Hampton (who also wrote the screenplay for the film), is set in the salons of some of France’s most exquisite chateaux, much of it by candlelight. Director Stephen Frears really gorges on the beauty of it all, including the main characters’ wonderful and ever-changing wardrobes, in stark contrast to the tawdriness of their morals. This makes Dangerous Liaisons (available on BBC iPlayer till the end of the month) a visual feast, with a lovely and appropriate musical soundtrack. One senses that things can only end badly, but not before the mischievous couple have created mayhem. Once one has got over the shock of hearing French aristocrats speak with American accents and cadence (particularly unnerving in the case of John Malkovich), one can surrender to the power of a wicked story, beautifully told. The action occurs just before the French Revolution, which is never mentioned — but one feels it cannot come a moment too soon.

A Very British Scandal

I watched the first episode of Stephen Frears’ three-part TV bio-pic about the Thorpe Affair, A Very British Scandal, with a degree of trepidation. Despite the director’s esteemed back catalogue and the stellar cast, could it be anything else but a travesty of the truth? I knew Jeremy Thorpe from the time he came to speak at the Oxford University Liberal Club (of which I was then Secretary) in about 1970 right up until his death in 2014, so well over 40 years, and like most of his numerous friends I was very fond of him. He was one of the most charismatic politicians I have ever encountered — witty, charming and urbane to such a degree that most of us failed to perceive a darker side to his character. Right to the end, he denied having plotted Norman Scott’s murder, and indeed a court found him not guilty of that charge. So I think he would have been shocked — probably to the point of litigation, for which he did have a bent — by the dramatic assertion at the end of episode 1 of A Very British Scandal that he effectively commissioned Peter Bessell to have Norman bumped off. Bessell was of course an extremely dodgy character himself (beautifully played by Alex Jennings, very much as I remember Bessell), who moved to America and was an unreliable witness, to put it mildly. I never encountered Norman Joliffe/Scott, who was much less attractive in real life than the super-talented and winsome Ben Whishaw, but Whishaw absolutely nails the element of helplessness about Norman which Jeremy did find immensely appealing, sexually stimulating even, until things started to turn terribly sour. So what about Hugh Grant as Jeremy? He accurately mimics some of Thorpe’s mannerisms, though the voice wasn’t quite that Edward-Fox-plummy, and naturally the Edwardian-style clothes that Jeremy favoured are down to a T. But I think the audience needed to see more of Thorpe’s undeniable charm and splendidly theatrical showmanship before the storm clouds gathered and the murder plot was allegedly hatched. Frears shows he is still very much the master of his art. Indeed, as a TV mini-series this promises to be outstanding entertainment. But is it really true or fair? And will it be that it manages in later episodes to show why talented and successful people like Jeremy Thorpe (or, indeed, at an intellectually and creatively higher level, Oscar Wilde) dice with danger for the thrill of the risk and a fatal curiosity about what it would be like to be found out?

From Russia with Love

There isn’t much love between the UK and Russia these days, in the wake of the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, but while the war of words continues between the two governments, at a cultural level there is a determination to keep things friendly. So there was a good turn-out — and no embarrassing demonstrations — at the gala UK premiere of Artyom Mikhalkov’s 2016 film, Betting on Love, at the Soho Hotel’s screening room in Soho last night. The event was all part of the London end of the Sochi Film Festival Awards (SIFFA) — a relative newcomer to the film festival circuit, based in the Black Sea resort that hosted the Winter Olympics four years ago. There were drinks and awards of various kinds before the Soho screening, with a great many bouquets of flowers. Stephen Frears — who collected a certificate, along with one for an absent Dame Judi Dench — was so festooned with blooms he could have opened a stall in Columbia Road market. Artyom Mikhalkov was on hand to receive his own Sochi gong. His film was a romantic comedy that made many nods to the rom-coms of the 1960s and 1970s, with a bit of James Bond thrown in. The hero was a diminutive Armenian waiter working in a sushi restaurant who nonetheless has the chance of winning the hand of a fair maiden. There are some nice gags about Russian mafiosi as well as armospheric location shots in Las Vegas, but the film was as frothy as whipped cream in a can — and everyone kissed, made up and paired off at the end.

Victoria & Abdul

The extraordinary story of the maternal affection that the widowed Queen Victoria felt for a young Indian servant, Abdul Karim, brought over to England in 1887, is a worthy subject for Stephen Frears’ new film, Victoria & Abdul, which is now out on general release. The real Abdul — dubbed the Munshi or teacher, because he taught the monarch Hindustani (actually Urdu) at her request — was nowhere near as handsome as actor Ali Fazal, who plays him in the film, and as the years went by he became chubby and arrogant. But Victoria was certainly besotted with him, as she had been earlier with her devoted Scottish attendant, John Brown. On his mother’s death, King Edward VII ordered the burning of the correspondence between Victoria and Abdul, but there is enough material extant in diaries and other letters to reconstruct the skeleton of the story. As is portrayed in the film, the Royal Household was indeed scandalised by the Munshi’s increasingly high-profile presence at Court, for social and racial reasons. Of course, the film inevitably takes some historical liberties (there is no mention of Abdul’s trips home to India during Victoria’s lifetime, for example), but some of the things that might appear the most preposterous, such as Abdul’s kneeling down to kiss Victoria’s feet, are absolutely true. The settings, from the painted hall at the Royal Naval College at Greenwich to Osborne on the Isle of White, are stunning and the filming itself is a thing of great beauty. Judi Dench is magnificent as Victoria, her moods shifting from impatience to joy and then despair. At times there is a risk of caricature among the members of the Royal Household and doubtless some people will find that there is an uneasy balance between comedy and tragedy in the story as portrayed. But so there is in life, too.