Star Review
"It’s about three decent people. They will break your heart" – so rang the melodramatic and misleading tagline to this much misunderstood film made by John Schlesinger after his return to Britain, having scooped an Oscar for Midnight Cowboy. Although hugely acclaimed at the time – Sunday Bloody Sunday won all four major BAFTAs, for Schlesinger, Peter Finch, Glenda Jackson and for the film itself – it is usually referenced now as a time capsule of early 1970s attitudes rather than as a marvellous film in its own right. Whenever the film is discussed today its pioneering depiction of a gay relationship seems to overshadow the film’s complex sexual politics. It is high time the film was rediscovered.
The plot itself could be summed up as “Daniel loves Bob and so does Alex.” Daniel (Finch) is a Jewish doctor who shares his male lover (Murray Head) with a woman (Glenda Jackson). Finch and Jackson do not share the screen until the last few minutes but both are aware of each other throughout their relationship with Bob, who is destined to leave the country in 9 days. How each character copes with the inevitable end of the affair dominates the action.
This is a brilliant and accurate representation of middle class England, which neither caricatures nor scorns its protagonists. The film is often very funny; Jackson looks after a friend’s very young children who, when she scolds them for smoking pot, snap back “are you bourgeois?”. (Incidentally, the scene where Jackson mimics a toucan is not to be missed.) The performances from Finch and Jackson are superb, whilst the script from film critic Penelope Gilliatt (the only time she wrote a screenplay) is a masterclass in depicting complex relationships between intelligent characters.
Robert Ebert wrote a very perceptive critique on the film: “I think [it’s] a masterpiece, but I don’t think it’s about what everybody else seems to think it’s about. This is not a movie about the loss of love, but about its absence.” The unconventional relationship, however warm, is too open, and therefore doomed, and this sympathetic but realistic picture captures this viewpoint succinctly and without sentimentality.
Alex Davidson on 10th December 2008
View all 156 of Alex Davidson’s reviews
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Sunday Bloody Sunday
