This TV movie is an episode of the BBC program Screen Two. It is listed as a series with one episode, so we may assume it was the pilot for a series that never was. The time is 1941 and the scenario is a castle/villa in Ireland not far from Dublin. The lady of the castle is Ms. Tennant, whose husband is deceased (and hanging in effigy on a wall). She lives in the castle with her daughter-in -law (son is off to war), servants and assorted children.
As the movie opens the head butler is in his deathbed, with the complete indifference of the uppers and only some occasional nod from the servants. The main character is Charlie Raunce, the new head butler. Raunce (played to perfection by Mark Rylance) is a repulsive character; he is subservient to the uppers to the point of allowing them to give him a generic name not his own. He is a bully with the servants and addresses them with sadistic put-downs. One cringes every time he appears on screen. The second half of the script attempts to humanize him, but it is too late; his credentials as a cad are firm by that time.
Acting and production values are good, but the tale is not particularly compelling. It may be of interest if you are an observer of the monstrous British caste system. Being an English movie there are the expected digs at the IRA and at Ireland's neutrality in WWII, which so infuriated the bellicose Churchill that he entertained the idea of invading the Irish Free State.
As the movie opens the head butler is in his deathbed, with the complete indifference of the uppers and only some occasional nod from the servants. The main character is Charlie Raunce, the new head butler. Raunce (played to perfection by Mark Rylance) is a repulsive character; he is subservient to the uppers to the point of allowing them to give him a generic name not his own. He is a bully with the servants and addresses them with sadistic put-downs. One cringes every time he appears on screen. The second half of the script attempts to humanize him, but it is too late; his credentials as a cad are firm by that time.
Acting and production values are good, but the tale is not particularly compelling. It may be of interest if you are an observer of the monstrous British caste system. Being an English movie there are the expected digs at the IRA and at Ireland's neutrality in WWII, which so infuriated the bellicose Churchill that he entertained the idea of invading the Irish Free State.
