Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution (2007) User Reviews

It wasn't that bad!

[curehalo · 5/10 · 1 April 2008]

Maybe it's because I am an American living in the UK (four years now) and I have low expectations for British made films at this point, but I didn't think this was a bad movie at all! And I don't even like Catherine Tate! Well, I didn't, but I do now.

The movie is based on a true story, and I guess true stories can only only be funny incidentally. It does not have laugh out loud moments, but I didn't fast forward through any of it either. Catherine Tate is really lovely in this film, but then again, she is really the only truly filled out character in the movie. She's a put upon housewife and her struggle to remain in control of a household in a country where you can't even control your own wallpaper is amusing. My family was stationed in Germany in the seventies, and I think this film is a pretty light-hearted view of everything, really skimming over people being shot and led away, so it is hard to take it too seriously.

I think what is lacking in this movie is that, because it is based on facts, and although they ARE interesting facts, it tries to fit so much in that it cannot always give us enough of every character. Her daughters feel like caricatures, one like a child of the damned really, as does her husband, and even the Germans around them. Despite her brother having nearly no lines, he is a pretty solid character and I kept wanting to see more of him. Her neighbor is also very intriguing, although I wanted her to have a bit more screen time as well.

Part of the movie preview I saw, had it say that she wanted to save her children from a bleak future, but I don't feel that the children's future looked so bleak. The youngest one was involved in sports and winning lots of things, as well as joining in clubs. They make an attempt to show her as an outsider, but never go into detail. As for her older daughter, all she was doing in the UK was sleeping around, and she's still sleeping around, so I don't see the difference. She only seems to be miserable that she can't listen to the music she wants to. her clothes and hair don't change, and she was moody before. I think Mrs. Ratcliffe's main motive's for leaving are feeling useless, bored, and utterly depressed and frightened by the fact her neighbors keep disappearing. The final straw clearly is being spied on. I think she just doesn't want to live with the fear anymore. I think that should have been explored more. Catherine Tate does her best to express this with her face and her tone of voice, but no one wrote it for her in depth and so she can't act on it.

But for having oh, eight main characters, and a crazy sequence of events, I think the film does it's best. I only rented it, but I did watch it a second time before bringing it back. I wish they had made it darker so it would have been a real black comedy, but, like I said, it's not that bad!

What does everyone want, but no-one likes! Getting exactly what they want.

[nathan-yeo · 7/10 · 23 August 2009]

Mr. RADCLIFF dreams of a communist society, and has his brain-washed his daughter into going along with him. He thrives for it. So he jumps at the chance to teach in EAST Germany and move his family there. From the beginning with the BORDER GUARDS laffing at him for moving there you see a mans dreams crash before him.

In ENGLAND he was the head of the family. His doting wife a meek homemaker, takes to wheeling and dealing to survive in a communist country. She consorts with smugglers, extortionists, soldiers and other assorted outcasts of communist society. His youngest daughter a comrade in the COMMUNIST lifestyle takes to spying on the family, and turning them in for infractions. His brother in-law a subservient to him gets some back-bone and tells him off lets him have it about certain communist heroes he had. his oldest daughter a counter-culture and a hoe, finds herself and looses her free spirit.

Mr. RADLIFF himself starts to realize that a big part of communist society is keeping out western influences as his students are being dragged away for asking about mayonnaise (something he refers as caviar for the poor). Neighbords are dragged away for simple infractions. the dream of everyone helping each other for the greater good are dashed as no-one does anything unless they're getting paid.

That being said his wife and the neighbor lady had some big-uns.

Eastern (Broken) Promise

[writers_reign · 5/10 · 30 September 2007]

There's an outside chance that this looked promising at the pitch stage but any misgivings should have been heeded. It's fairly clear that someone involved, either the writers, who pitched it to a production company or a producer who subsequently hired writers, saw Regis Warniers Est-Ouest - a drama in which a French woman, Sandrine Bonnaire, married to a Russian doctor, Oleg Menshikov, accompanies him to Russia in 1946 against her better judgment, is terribly unhappy there and escapes - and Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye, Lenin - a comedy in which a dedicated Communist, Katrin Sals, living in East Germany, falls into a coma shortly before the 'Wall' comes down, wakens some time afterward but cannot be told she is now in the WEST lest she suffers a heart attack - and decided a combination of the two would surely clean up at the Box Office (both films were highly praised and garnered several nominations) and then delivered a film that is neither funny or dramatic. Alternatively, someone concerned saw The Lives Of Others at the beginning of the year and dashed off Ratcliffe in about ten days. If ideas were all it took then I myself and probably half of you out there would be millionaires many times over but as we all know ideas need a little back-up, like talent, ability, competence. Iain Glen is a very fine stage actor but doesn't have the best record when it comes to picking films, similarly Catherine Tate is also a fine stage actress and an equally fine writer and comedienne - it was in fact her name that 'sold' this movie to me - so the two leads tick all the boxes where talent, ability and competence are concerned. The two writers are something else, Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan have only one previous credit, Sixty Six, which again they wrote in tandem and which sunk without trace. The premise is simple: a dedicated communist living in 1960s Yorkshire, applies, without consulting his family - wife, brother-in-law, two daughters, for a teaching post in what was then 'East' Germany. Having been offered the post - teaching English Literature - he proposes that they move en masse and meets surprisingly little or no resistance, no worries about leaving friends behind, changing schools, etc, in other words, unrealistic. The regime they encounter is strangely benign and although the Stasi is acknowledged - indeed both Mr Ratcliffe and his youngest daughter are soon on the payroll as it were - it is an equally benign outfit and no one is actually tortured/killed as a result of information obtained. There is absolutely zero chemistry between Glenn and Tate (who becomes quite adept at escape) so that we are unable to work up much of a sweat about their eventual reconciliation. This should have gone straight to video thence to oblivion.

Let's ask the eastern Germans what do they think about this "light" propaganda Family movie..

[redbabbs · 1/10 · 28 June 2015]

Der Spiegel (Spiegel-Online)July 03, 2009 Majority of Eastern Germans Feel Life Better under Communism By Julia Bonstein

Glorification of the German Democratic Republic is on the rise two decades after the Berlin Wall fell. Young people and the better off are among those rebuffing criticism of East Germany as an "illegitimate state." In a new poll, more than half of former eastern Germans defend the GDR.

The life of Birger, a native of the state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania in northeastern Germany, could read as an all-German success story. The Berlin Wall came down when he was 10. After graduating from high school, he studied economics and business administration in Hamburg, lived in India and South Africa, and eventually got a job with a company in the western German city of Duisburg. Today Birger, 30, is planning a sailing trip in the Mediterranean. He isn't using his real name for this story, because he doesn't want it to be associated with the former East Germany, which he sees as "a label with negative connotations."

And yet Birger is sitting in a Hamburg cafe, defending the former communist country. "Most East German citizens had a nice life," he says. "I certainly don't think that it's better here." By "here," he means reunified Germany, which he subjects to questionable comparisons. "In the past there was the Stasi, and today (German Interior Minister Wolfgang) Schäuble -- or the GEZ (the fee collection center of Germany's public broadcasting institutions) -- are collecting information about us." In Birger's opinion, there is no fundamental difference between dictatorship and freedom. "The people who live on the poverty line today also lack the freedom to travel."

Birger is by no means an uneducated young man. He is aware of the spying and repression that went on in the former East Germany, and, as he says, it was "not a good thing that people couldn't leave the country and many were oppressed." He is no fan of what he characterizes as contemptible nostalgia for the former East Germany. "I haven't erected a shrine to Spreewald pickles in my house," he says, referring to a snack that was part of a the East German identity. Nevertheless, he is quick to argue with those who would criticize the place his parents called home: "You can't say that the GDR was an illegitimate state, and that everything is fine today."

Carry On Up The DDR

[thoss-1 · 1/10 · 21 October 2007]

After The Lives of Others and Goodbye Lenin, two good films about the old East Germany produced in the home country, along come the Brits with "Carry On Up The DDR", a truly shameful piece of "work." If there's anything interesting to write about this completely dreadful movie which I saw last night at the splendid Ritz in Belper, I can't think of it. So why write a review? Merely to accentuate the message from the one previous IMDb commentator here before me and urge you to avoid it at all costs. Waiting in a dark alley to get mugged would be better usage of time and money than paying for this shocking dreck.

If there's an interesting question to pose about it, it would be this: how could the two writers of Sixty-Six, a very good and at its conclusion really quite moving film, go on to produce this heap of amateurish, chronically scripted, sloppy, wildly historically inaccurate, half-dimensional, miserably thought-out garbage? My guess is that after the critical, if not commercial success of that soulful, intelligent Jewish father-son World Cup '66 movie, one that captured the spirit of the times quite uncannily well, they were asked by someone or other wanting to make a movie, 'what else have you got?'. Surely on the point of throwing away the script for Mrs R's R - something they wrote as fifth formers in between their Physics and Maths homework - they said, 'well, we've got this...'

What more to say? Perhaps someone should report the Worst Scene From A Movie in 2007, the Oughts, the 21st century, Cinematic History, etc: the one where to let the audience know what a dump of a state flat the Radcliffes were stuck in, a rat appears on the record player, disrupting the music. Wait: that's not it. Next shot is the East German neighbour bashing to death said (enormous) rat - rat out of shot, with heavy object. Cue next scene.

That was it. That was supposed to be funny (I promise you), on its own. No witty out-line, no cut to (the pretty bad, here) Catherine Tate making funny facial expression, no blood and guts-spurts-out-of-rat-into-rat-killer's-face (if only). Nothing.

Two cheerier things to finish with: one, the movie got some laughs from the Derbyshire audience, so it's possible that the film won't be as depressing an experience for you as it was for me if anyone forces you to go see it; two, the price of a Ritz ticket is one of the cheapest in the UK.

So, a grim embarrassment for the British film industry then: 'Carry On Up The DDR' pretty much sums it up for this writer, but with no Sid James,Kenneth Williams or Charles Hawtrey to redeem it.

T

Uplifting, heart-warming, and thoroughly enjoyable!

[Floose · 8/10 · 11 September 2010]

This is the first review I have written on IMDb, and I do so only because I feel the other reviews have been ridiculously unjust to this light-hearted, frothy, and thoroughly enjoyable comedy.

For pure escapist fun, pervaded by a gentle and giggly sense of humour that never takes itself seriously, I recommend this movie highly. In many ways, it reminded me of the innocent spirit and child-like joie-de-vivre of "The Sound of Music" and "Mary Poppins". Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that if you're in any way a fan of the aforementioned two classics, then you will almost certainly feel that watching "Mrs. Ratcliffe's Revolution" was time well spent.

I would probably have scored this movie a genuine 7/10, but I feel the necessity to counteract the ridiculously low scores given so far.

Significantly better than other reviewers have said

[neilwaddington-1 · 8/10 · 19 September 2009]

Yes, okay, it's not laugh a minute, but that is the point.... It is based on real life - what would happen if a person genuinely believed the communist ideal and moved their family to east Germany in the sixties?

Reminiscent of Hideous Kinky, this is a genuine look back from the point of view of a daughter in an unusual and poignant situation. The movie handles the story with charm and while moments are a little cheesy, it is well worth viewing, particularly for fans of Catherine Tate, who does a great job here.

I guess it depends if your glass is half full or half empty!!

Feel-good and witty!

[Spitfire_Swe · 8/10 · 28 August 2008]

This movie takes us on a journey with a British family enticed by the communistic East Germany. Although the movie is rather light-hearted and witty, if you look through the obvious irony to the subtle humoristic usages of language (such as The League of Friends, but I won't mention more for anti spoiler-warning purposes), it is a revealing look into how people in different ages with different dispositions could have reacted to the communist pressures.

One of these is the youngest daughters course of action through the movie, where her character is the only one that would plausibly behave in the way she did. The same goes for the other characters, as well as several very funny moments and twists that I unfortunately cannot go further into here. If you follow each character throughout this movie, you will find an amazing ability in the director to be able to intertwine personal relationships realistically with the plot. Have in mind the director is not using huge names, nor is on a huge budget.

What I enjoyed the most with this movie was that although the main theme is East Germany communism, the personal relationships and their course throughout the movie follows realistically and purposefully throughout the movie together with the plot, an amazing feat, but one thing made me lower my vote from 10/10 to 8/10. To collect the last loose ends together, a wee bit of magical thinking and a forgive-and-forget attitude ties them neatly, although humoristically, together.

An underrated comedy gem

[crushontragedy · 10/10 · 3 July 2023]

I really like this film and I'm interested in this period in general, and I like the fact that it's based on a real family story.

I think Catherine Tate is just incredible here as both a comedic and dramatic actress. You probably know how good she can be with a good script like in Doctor Who, but here, too, there are quite a few moments where she just shines. Iain Glen is also great. I think the whole cast did a great job, the kids were also very memorable.

I would love to see this get a wider release on streaming services one day, since, unfortunately, I've only ever watched it in absolutely terrible quality.