MRS PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT
Directed by: Dan Ireland.
Produced by: Lee Caplin, Zachary Matz & Carl Colpaert.
Written by: Ruth Sacks, based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor.
Director of Photography: Claudio Rocha.
Edited by: Nigel Galt & Virginia Katz.
Music by: Stephen Barton & Gaili Schoen.
Released by: Cineville/Picture Entertainment.
Country of Origin: UK. 108 min. Not Rated.
With: Joan Plowright, Rupert Friend, Zoe Tapper, Anna Massey, Robert Lang, Marcia Warren & Georgina Hale.

Dame Joan Plowright brings an endearing warmth and stately bearing to the elderly and widowed Mrs. Palfrey. When arrives at her new home, The Claremont Hotel, she finds to her dismay the ambiance is dreary, the food bland, and the service unrefined. The other boarders are misfit loners, who are appropriately described as being out of a Terence Rattigan play. The social interactions among the residents are less about meaningful connections than their desire to gossip. However, Mrs. Palfrey comes from the code of manners more typical of a formal bygone era, when modesty and a courteous demeanor prevailed. As such, she welcomes, if warily, her new surroundings and neighbors, and soon acts the part of the proud grandmother, inviting her nearby grandson over to dinner. To her great disappointment, not only does he not show up, he doesn't even have the decency to return her phone calls.

To Mrs. Palfrey's pleasant surprise and serendipitous fortune, a young, handsome writer and musician, Ludovic Meyer, comes to her aid after she trips on the sidewalk. His gentlemanly and kind-hearted nature is the honey in her cup of tea. With a twinkle and tender spirit, relative newcomer Rupert Friend displays a charming chemistry with Plowright. Together, their characters form the kind of bond that transcends the niceties of acquaintance. In fact, when Mrs. Palfrey’s neighbors assume Ludovic is her grandson, she unpremeditatedly finds it not altogether unpleasant to ask him to step in and fill the role. What develops from there is a platonic romance between generations, a love affair that merits the definition of true friendship and family. Just as Ludovic becomes Mrs. Palfrey's heaven-sent grandson, she in turn becomes the nurturing friend and parent sorely missing from his life.

Although the rest of the cast provides an array of amusing characters dispelled from the mainstream either by age, choice, or their own eccentric natures, these portrayals occasionally become too mannered and border on cartoonish. In addition, certain plot turns venture into the territory of predictable sentimentality. That being said, the story and the performances, especially by Plowright and Friend, strike the right chord for a sweet and heartfelt film. As in its use of the nostalgic song "For All We Know," the movie conveys the simple understanding of people reaching out to one another to find a connection, if even for a little while. Max Rennix, actor & writer based in New York
November 12, 2005