Directed by Anthony Friedman, director of...well nothing else, this is an adaptation of a story by Herman Melville. A firm of accountants takes on an employee, Bartleby, who starts to behave differently to everyone else, mainly by not doing what he is told, often using the phrase, "I prefer not to", which does get rather boring. Eventually the firm moves offices to escape Bartleby and he is carted off to an asylum. Where he dies of something.
It is hard to warm to the film because Bartleby is almost a complete blank. No background is suggested, no motives are given and a lot of the time he is either silent or he says something cryptic without context. He wanders around 1970's London (nicely photographed though) in his spare time and looks at things but there is no indication of why or what he feels. John McEnery as Bartleby has a pinched, haunted look but speaks all the time in a quiet monotone that eventually begins to grate. The other main character is the head accountant played by a subdued Paul Scofield who tries to understand and help Bartleby.
One is left wondering what the film is about though it does encourage one to perhaps read the original story and compare.
It is hard to warm to the film because Bartleby is almost a complete blank. No background is suggested, no motives are given and a lot of the time he is either silent or he says something cryptic without context. He wanders around 1970's London (nicely photographed though) in his spare time and looks at things but there is no indication of why or what he feels. John McEnery as Bartleby has a pinched, haunted look but speaks all the time in a quiet monotone that eventually begins to grate. The other main character is the head accountant played by a subdued Paul Scofield who tries to understand and help Bartleby.
One is left wondering what the film is about though it does encourage one to perhaps read the original story and compare.