nick s
A lot of effort went into sets, costumes and makeup. But to be honest the movie was a little too dull for my attention span.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/27/24
Full Review
Fi S
Incredibly dull acting. Yet set among stunning giants of locations - Swiss Alps and Oxford University. Yet nothing could raise this dead cast to life. Palin acts like a carrot.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
06/19/23
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Audience Member
A beautiful film . From a time and a world does not exist anymore . Unfortunately for us .
It is amazing for me that today what is beautiful , full of substance , real values , qualities , is not appreciated anymore .Only cruelty , ugliness, violence attract people of today .WE HAVE WHAT WE ASK .
I give this film 4 stars and a half from five .
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/14/23
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Audience Member
<i>''We will achieve nothing as a species if we cannot adapt.''
</i>
Francis Ashby, a senior Oxford don on holiday alone in the Alps, meets holidaying American Caroline and her companion Elinor, the blossoming Irish-American girl she adopted many years before. Ashby finds he enjoys their company together, particularly that of Elinor, and both the women are drawn to him. Back at Oxford he is nevertheless taken aback when they arrive unannounced. Women are not allowed in the College grounds, let alone the rooms. Indeed any liaison, however innocent, is frowned on.
<b>Michael Palin</b>: Reverend Francis Ashby
<b>Alfred Molina</b>: Oliver Syme
<b>Susan Denaker</b>: Mrs. Cantrell
<i>American Friends</i> is a movie that tells of a bygone era that isn't as long as it seems.
The difference in social ideals compared today is always fascinating.
Michael Palin has proven before he is more than a comedian from seeing <i>Brazil</i> to a <i>Fish Called Wanda</i>. <i>American Friends</i> is also an example indeed.
Loved the scientific side of life in the lectures. Alfred Molina gives a varied performance even having a scruffy beard to boot.
On a whole the film does have a feel of being something of TV standing as opposed to something of grandeur in filming.
Granted I'm an Englishman that enjoys his period flicks and loves history so it gains more prestige with me for its wonderful costumes and quaint locations.
A simple tale of love which i admit has been done before. A good effort.
<CENTER><i>Education in love</i></CENTER>
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/24/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I'm a Michael (but not Sarah) Palin fan, so I decided to stay up late to watch it on TV. It's a typical British Victorian costume drama, similar to "Room with a View" or "French Lieutenant's Woman"--more of a chick flick. Good impression of what Oxford was like in the 19th C. I enjoyed the plot twist at the end when they explained that it was a real story based on Palin's great-grandfather. As the previous poster mentioned, the story moves rather slowly & the main characters make some rather unexpected, irrational decisions, but overall I liked it.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Obviously Before Eugenics Was a Thing
I wasn't aware that it used to be forbidden for Oxford dons to be married, but now that I know, I'm not overly surprised. Academia has long treated women as though they had cooties at best and mind-sucking powers at worst. It's gotten better in recent years, but it wasn't until well into the twentieth century that Oxford granted degrees to women--and that was [i]after[/i] it admitted them for studies. They could attend, but they couldn't get a piece of paper saying that they'd satisfactorily completed their studies. The idea that a man wouldn't be capable of doing his job as a professor if he had a wife and, presumably, children actually means that Oxford expected more then the Church of England. In fact, a vicar's wife has long been considered essential to the proper running of a parish, but then, she was expected to do all the girly things like taking care of people. No place for that in college, I suppose.
Reverend Francis Ashby (Michael Palin) probably stands to be the next president of Oxford when the old one (Robert Eddison) finally kicks off. However, he does risk taking a vacation to the Swiss Alps despite the fact that the president looks inclined to dropping off at any moment. The scene he enters seems rather out of a Merchant-Ivory production. Most important are Miss Elinor Hartley (Trini Alvorado) and her aunt, Miss Caroline Hartley (Connie Booth). Caroline rescued Elinor from a life of desperate poverty in Ireland and basically never lets Elinor forget it. Both women fall for Francis, but of course he can't even think about women, because he has the college. And when it looks like he's going to start thinking about Elinor after all, he flees back to Oxford, where his rival, Oliver Syrne (Alfred Molina), has begun to make some headway with wooing the men of the college into electing him next instead. And Elinor decides she won't let Francis escape her, and the Hartley women come to Oxford.
The end scroll informs us that what we have watched is very like the story of one Edward Palin. Who, indeed, left Oxford and ended up having seven children. One of those children had a grandson named Michael. I don't know how closely the story as we've seen it resembles the actual Palin family history; I suppose Michael would know better than I. Certainly neither the end scroll nor the two reference sites I use are giving me a lot of detail on the subject. If the story is accurate, I tend to assume that he is not descended from "Elinor's" first child. However, if his great-grandparents really did travel as is shown here, at least we know where he gets that particular urge. I like to think that this is one of those stories handed down through the family with emphasis on the importance of doing what you think is right, even if not everyone agrees, but no one seems to want to tell me that detail, either. Again, you'd probably have to ask Michael Palin.
It's a bit of a bittersweet story, really. I mean, for one thing, I can't help feeling at least a bit sorry for Caroline. I got the impression through most of the story that she was rather angling for Francis herself, and certainly that was better than being pursued by that unpleasant doctor (Alun Armstrong, I'm pretty sure), who (I'm pretty sure) was already married. Any way you look at it, Connie Booth was nearly fifty and her character was an old maid. An old enough maid, indeed, to have a niece old enough so it wouldn't be scandalous for her to marry. Now, it's true that I have friends who are considerably older than their siblings, but it's never implied that it was the case for Caroline. Though we don't know much about Elinor's family other than there were a lot of them and that they were poor in Ireland. At any rate, it's reasonable to believe that part of the reason Caroline took in Elinor was that she wanted a family of her own--and now she's lost it along with a man she seemed interested in.
Honestly, the outcome I was hoping for was that this would turn out to be the story of how Oxford dons became allowed to marry. Though interestingly, a search of when that was first permitted shows that it began two years before the movie is set. Whether that's a mistake on the part of the site I found saying that or a mistake on Palin's part, I cannot say. Any way you look at it, it's rather better for the intelligence of the species as a whole if intelligent people are allowed to marry and have children. (Leaving aside the possibility that intelligence and certain forms of mental illness are genetically linked, of course, which is a longer and more complicated debate!) It's also better for the individuals to be able to experience a full and healthy family life. One of the marks of the stereotypical eccentric intellectual, after all, is that they don't have anything like a healthy family life. Or, indeed, a family life at all. Perhaps that ban is part of why.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
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