Having loved Losey and Pinter's first film, The Servant, for its class commentary and Incredible portrayal of gradual emotional manipulation, I was optimistic for Accident, yet ultimately left disappointed.
Following three rivals competing over an Austrian student, empty conversations hide the turmoil and distrust under the surface of our leads interactions. Whilst the deliberately vapid dialogue did make the plot hard to follow and also delivered some awkward and weird reactions from the character, I didn't hate it all that much and can see how well some of the performances are in that regard. Despite little indication from the script you can figure out what insecurities are affecting Stephen and to an extent the other male leads from their body language and delivery of the scant dialogue.
For me however, the main flaw is the one dimensional nature of our male characters which ultimately makes them unrelatable. Their only motive seems to be getting the girl or out performing each other. Whilst the film does build tension surrounding this, there is little else to their characters. Their jobs and families hardly seem to be a concern and their single mindedness often makes them very dislikable, especially given how immorally some of them act.
The female characters on the other hand are really overlooked and would offer far more complexity and relatability. Anna's final actions are never explained and the film offers almost zero insight as to how she thinks and feels- in fact it's often the male characters telling us for her. Given she Has the most complex situation and that we are clearly told how the men think and feel, it just seems like an unfortunate case of the period's attitudes of depicting women as simple, dull and oblivious have won over here- even with an Oxford student.
Perhaps if she and others were included as fully fledged characters, the film's focus on the importance of characters true feelings underneath the meaningless conversations would carry more weight. As it is, it's just an embarrassing case of three oxford men, acting and thinking in the one way men supposedly do. Maybe Pinter was trying to critique the typical entitled Oxford Don, but I highly doubt it.
Following three rivals competing over an Austrian student, empty conversations hide the turmoil and distrust under the surface of our leads interactions. Whilst the deliberately vapid dialogue did make the plot hard to follow and also delivered some awkward and weird reactions from the character, I didn't hate it all that much and can see how well some of the performances are in that regard. Despite little indication from the script you can figure out what insecurities are affecting Stephen and to an extent the other male leads from their body language and delivery of the scant dialogue.
For me however, the main flaw is the one dimensional nature of our male characters which ultimately makes them unrelatable. Their only motive seems to be getting the girl or out performing each other. Whilst the film does build tension surrounding this, there is little else to their characters. Their jobs and families hardly seem to be a concern and their single mindedness often makes them very dislikable, especially given how immorally some of them act.
The female characters on the other hand are really overlooked and would offer far more complexity and relatability. Anna's final actions are never explained and the film offers almost zero insight as to how she thinks and feels- in fact it's often the male characters telling us for her. Given she Has the most complex situation and that we are clearly told how the men think and feel, it just seems like an unfortunate case of the period's attitudes of depicting women as simple, dull and oblivious have won over here- even with an Oxford student.
Perhaps if she and others were included as fully fledged characters, the film's focus on the importance of characters true feelings underneath the meaningless conversations would carry more weight. As it is, it's just an embarrassing case of three oxford men, acting and thinking in the one way men supposedly do. Maybe Pinter was trying to critique the typical entitled Oxford Don, but I highly doubt it.