Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows RT App News Showtimes

The Ploughman's Lunch

Play trailer Poster for The Ploughman's Lunch R 1983 1h 40m Drama Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
Tomatometer 3 Reviews 40% Popcornmeter 50+ Ratings
Journalist James Penfield (Jonathan Pryce) starts working on a book about the 1956 Suez Crisis while he also begins pursuing TV reporter Susan Barrington (Charlie Dore). Unable to attract her attention, James follows his friend Jeremy Hancock's (Tim Curry) suggestion that he befriend Susan's mother, Ann (Rosemary Harris), to get closer to her daughter. As James spends more time with Ann, he realizes he has more in common with the mother than the daughter.

Where to Watch

The Ploughman's Lunch

Critics Reviews

View More
Eddie Harrison film-authority.com 09/04/2021
5/5
‘…with surgical precision, McEwan and Eyre rip the moral vacuity of the young urban professional of the early 80’s…an explosive political film…’ Go to Full Review
Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com 06/26/2005
2/5
TV Guide 07/30/2003
4/5
Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View More
bob c Sep 14 Dated, of course. But after that: a vacuous BBC journo misses several great stories while pursuing a 5/10 woman and landing and rejecting her 1/10 mother. Poms of a certain age may like it See more Kylie R Mar 9 It was slow and boring with no characters I wanted to watch. The music was dreadful and the landscapes and colors dull and drab. There was nothing that made me think and nothing enjoyable about any of it. The flat tyre was the films peak but perhaps a metaphor for the film. Nothing could save it. See more Barbara C 05/12/2024 It's extremely well written, and a time capsule. See more harri k 11/09/2021 I'm not usually the one to say it and the film does make some good points and perhaps some acute observations about media landscape and certain types of journalists but, I mean, nothing happens. It's all rather pointless. Like Falklands War. See more 02/06/2015 Written by novelist and screenwriter Ian McEwan (The Good Son (1993) and Atonement (2001), and directed by Iris Richard Eyre (Iris (2001) and Notes on a Scandal (2006)), this is a powerful yet slow-burning drama which was EXTREMELY topical for it's day, as it was filmed around real events going on in the UK at that time. It's got a good selection of British actors on top form in the film. In 1982, James Penfield (Jonathan Pryce) is a motivated and ambitious reporter for BBC Radio who has been asked to write about the Suez Crisis, while the Falklands War dominates the news. James has become attracted to Susan Barrington (Charlie Dore), a TV journalist working for London Weekend Television, who was introduced to James by his old college chum Jeremy Hancock (Tim Curry). To research his work on the Suez Crisis, Susan suggests James contacts her mother Ann Barrington (Rosemary Harris), who wrote an article about the crisis, but it's not long before James ends up spending more time with Ann than Susan. It's such a realistic film, it's almost a stone's throw away from being classed as a documentary, even as parts of it were filmed at the 1982 Conservative Party conference, with Thatcher and her cronies giving speeches. It says a lot about the social classes of 80's Britain, and the gulf that was opening up between the classes. See more 07/26/2014 A rather too literary satire of Thatcher-era England, with Jonathan Pryce as an opportunistic radio reporter who sees a chance for self-promotion in the declaration of the Falklands war. See more Read all reviews
The Ploughman's Lunch

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

Movie Info

Synopsis Journalist James Penfield (Jonathan Pryce) starts working on a book about the 1956 Suez Crisis while he also begins pursuing TV reporter Susan Barrington (Charlie Dore). Unable to attract her attention, James follows his friend Jeremy Hancock's (Tim Curry) suggestion that he befriend Susan's mother, Ann (Rosemary Harris), to get closer to her daughter. As James spends more time with Ann, he realizes he has more in common with the mother than the daughter.
Director
Richard Eyre
Rating
R
Genre
Drama
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 6, 2016
Runtime
1h 40m
Most Popular at Home Now