Sons and Lovers

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steve d Watered down and ineffective. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review ashley h Sons and Lovers is a decent film. It is about a young man with artistic talent who lives in a close-knit, English coal-mining town during the early 20th century. Trevor Howard and Dean Stockwell give good performances. The screenplay is a little slow in places. Jack Cardiff did an alright job directing this movie. I liked this motion picture. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Brilliant photography matches most all aspects of this timeless story Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/17/20 Full Review Audience Member Jack Cardiff's greatest achievements came as a cinematographer as he produced the timeless visuals present in Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948). He doesn't have the abilities of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger as a director which hinders him in bringing D. H. Lawrence's classic novel of the same name to the screen. So much of the novel is the internal struggle of Paul Morel, better conveyed in writing than on screen, which means that it is harder to understand why this story is so captivating when on the surface so little happens. I didn't enjoy Ken Russell's Women in Love (1969) but I would call it superior to this film in that it is more willing to experiment and deviate from the text in what it portrays. Aspiring artist Paul Morel, Dean Stockwell, has an emotionally incestuous relationship with his mother Gertrude, Wendy Hiller, which is very different to the bond he shares with his abusive, alcoholic father Walter, Trevor Howard. He enters into a relationship with the sexually repressed Miriam Leivers, Heather Sears, that suffers under the weight of his unfulfilled sexual desires and the meddling of his jealous mother. Frustrated with Leivers, Morel begins sleeping with the sexually liberated feminist Clara Dawes, Mary Ure, who happens to be married. Dawes quickly recognizes the incestuous bond between Morel and his mother but has her own reservations about continuing the relationship due to the fact that she still loves her husband. When Gertrude falls ill Morel returns to her side and admits that he loves his mother more than he could love any other woman. After her death he resigns himself to a life of being a bachelor. The standout to come out of the film is Hiller who won an undeserved Academy Award for her performance in Separate Tables (1958) but proves she has real dramatic chops here. She delivers her comic, biting remarks intended to cut down the suitresses of her sons. There is a constant touch of sadness however as while she is able to exert control over her weak minded boys her husband proves harder to influence and the specter of physical and emotional abuse hangs over her character. Many of the characters are meant to believable as working class Britons and Hiller pulls of the accent and the manner better than anybody in the film as she reminded me of Edith Evans in Look Back in Anger (1959). Unfortunately the rest of the film is maudlin and mundane. Where the vivid emotions of Paul and his repressed desires are utterly compelling on the page it is difficult to understand why we should care so much about a young man who can't love two beautiful women because of his attachment to his mother the way this film tells it. I found myself bored by scenes that play out exhilaratingly in the book and while I looked forward to the scenes between Morel and Dawes I found myself let down. Stockwell and Ure give fine performances but both are forced to telegraph their emotions by a screenplay that prefers to tell instead of allowing the audience to be shown. The passion that Morel is transferring from his mother to this woman who is seemingly the complete opposite was never quite felt as there is little anger or desperation in this rendering of Morel and his tragic psyche is not very deeply explored. The lone Academy Award that this film won was for it's cinematography which I must recognize at being very good but when compared to Psycho (1960) and The Apartment (1960) it is hard to argue that it is deserving of this honor. We do get some beautiful images of Morel and Leivers frolicking in the evening light and the working class British atmosphere is captured nicely but nothing jumps out at you as being unique or special. Perhaps they wanted to acknowledge the film in some way as it was nominated for multiple major awards but I would have preferred to have seen Psycho (1960) or Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) nominated for Best Picture as they have both had longer lasting legacies and are far more engaging, entertaining pictures worthy of note. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member If this movie had been made a few years later a lot more could have been done with the Lawrence book on which it is based. (His Lady Chatterly's Lover was being un-banned in England the year the film was released). For a story depicting a young man's struggles to feel comfortable in a relationship, the movie is mostly passionless - and that is what weighs it down. I would have put the father more into the background too (where he largely belongs) even though Trevor Howard gives a strong performance. Dean Stockwell is also good as Paul, conveying the intelligence and confidence yet confusion of the main character. Listen out in the score for a strange use of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, when the husband brings his wife a cup of tea to her in bed the morning after one of their rows. Or did my ears deceive me? Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member ***Due to the recent RT changes that have basically ruined my past reviews, I am mostly only giving a rating rather than a full review.*** Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/09/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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