moriarty@tc.fluke.com (Jeff Meyer) (12/02/89)
A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1989 Jeff Meyer
[Seen at the Seattle International Film Festival]
A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL (Great Britain, 1989)
Director/Producer: Michael Winner
Screenwriter: Alan Ayckbourn and Michael Winner, from the play by Ayckbourn
Cast: Jeremy Irons, Anthony Hopkins, Jenny Seagrove, Prunella Scales,
Lionel Jeffries, Richard Briers, Patsy Kensit, Alexandra Pigg
Rambling comedies with eccentric characters have been very much in vogue
within the independent cinema over the last decade; and indeed, some very good
work has been done with this kind of premise. A CHORUS OF DISAPPROVAL is not
one of them. It opens with a very shy widower (Irons) who has been moved to a
British seaside town by his company deciding to start a social life again. He
comes upon an ad in the local paper about a volunteer production of "The
Beggar's Opera" looking for players, and decides that this will be the means
for his reentry into a social life.
The cast of "The Beggar's Opera" is a collection of characters from all
social and financial strata, most of them rather strident; the only really
enjoyable one is the director, played by Anthony Hopkins with hearty grouchy
malice. Irons starts out with a bit role, but due to either illness on the
part of a cast member, or bad blood between actors, he finds himself moving
into better and better roles. At the same time, Iron's personality begins to
change as he takes on bigger, more challenging parts; he becomes more
self-confident, more charming -- and more manipulative of the people he's
working with. He also starts affairs with two of the company, one of them
being Hopkin's wife. The dilemmas this creates throw Irons back and forth
between the Garrison Keillor side of his personality and his "star" side -- and
several levels in-between.
This isn't new ground for a film, but that doesn't matter; the point is
really that it isn't very funny. The dialogue is fairly flat, and the
characters never take on any real dimension (except for Hopkins'); if it was
meant to be more of a drama than a comedy, then the characters need added
dimension. It ends with no surprise, just a wry side-glance at the acting
profession and those who work in it. The trouble is, the events of A CHORUS OF
DISAPPROVAL, presented the way they are, are hardly worth a side-glance in the
first place.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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