A Handful of Dust (1988)

Calificación de los usuarios:

6.8/10   

Director:

Charles Sturridge

Escritores:

Derek Granger (writer)
Charles Sturridge (writer)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

24 junio 1988 (USA)

Género:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

The wife's affair and a death in the family hasten the demise of an upper-class English marriage.

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel | Independent Film

Premios:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win & 3 nominations

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Or the 'friendlier' Evelyn Waugh...

Reparto

James Wilby	...	Tony Last
Kristin Scott Thomas	...	Brenda Last
Rupert Graves	...	John Beaver
Anjelica Huston	...	Mrs. Rattery
Judi Dench	...	Mrs. Beaver
Alec Guinness	...	Mr. Todd
Richard Beale	...	Ben
Jackson Kyle	...	John Andrew
Norman Lumsden	...	Ambrose
Jeanne Watts	...	Nanny
Kate Percival	...	Miss Ripon
Richard Leech	...	Doctor
Roger Milner	...	Vicar
Tristram Jellinek	...	Richard Last
Pip Torrens	...	Jock

También conocida como:

El matrimonio de Lady Brenda (Argentina) [es]
Un puñado de polvo (Spain) [es]

Duración:

USA:118 min

País:

UK

Idioma:

Inglés

Color:

Color

Sonido:

Dolby

Clasificación:

Australia:PG | Argentina:Atp | Sweden:Btl | USA:PG (certificate #28951) | West Germany:6 | UK:PG

Locaciones de Filmación:

Brighton, East Sussex, England, UK

Compañía:

Compact Yellowbill

Trivialidades:

The final film of Richard Leech.

Conexiones de Película:

Referenced in The Benchwarmers (2006)

Or the 'friendlier' Evelyn Waugh...

The filmmakers of 'A Handful of Dust' are the same creative dynamos behind the hugely popular 'Brideshead Revisited'. They take the approach they took to 'Brideshead', which Waugh wrote when he was happy, with 'Dust', a novel which Waugh wrote when he wife was cheating on him and when he hated his life. 'Brideshead' was a much happier novel, and many purists consider it not to be a good work of Waugh's because it is lacking the acidic wit, satire and disgust of his characters which can be found in many (though not all) of his works. 'Brideshead' is a slow novel, something which most Waugh novels aren't, and comes as close as Waugh ever came to writing a soap opera. So, instead of giving us a sharp, nasty satire, which the novel itself is, we get a blander, kinder and very unfunny version of the novel. The moral bankruptcy of the characters, more or less the point of the whole novel, is hardly registered. The characters are having a "jolly good time" doing some bad things, but Sturridge and the two other writers (!) don't convey that what their characters are doing is bad. They skip over it, and instead spend all their time in giving away plot twists in the beginning of the film, to create "suspense", and restructuring the film, so all the unimportant scenes get maximum screen time. Even with the nice scenery, the film lacks the speed and fragmentary narrative of the novel, one of the reasons why the novel was considered so revolutionary, and comes across as a blah, nearly witless, edited-for-TV episode of Masterpiece Theater, instead of the theatrical film which it is and should be. This shouldn't come as a surprise, though: 'Brideshead Revisted' aired for months on Masterpiece Theater. The actors, though many are miscast, do their best, most of the technical aspects are there in some form, but the real problem lies with the filmmakers and their unwillingness to make a film which might be dark, mean or angry.