The Remains of the Day

I know people who consider The Remains of the Day (1993) to be boring in the extreme.  The first time I watched it, though, I was glued to the screen.  The story holds deep fascination for me, not because of the time period so much as the unfolding internal human drama.  The most important parts of the story are almost never expressed through dialogue.  This is partly due to the time period and culture the characters inhabit, when genteel civility prevailed in "polite" society.  Most of the focus is on Mr. Stevens (Anthony Hopkins) and his seeming inability to share his thoughts, feelings, and opinions with his colleagues, if, in fact, he even has any.

Anthony Hopkins won the Academy Award the previous year for his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.  Although he deserved praise for taking such a disturbing character and making him inexplicably likable, I think what he does in Remains of the Day is much more subtle and even more difficult.  We don't always know what Stevens is thinking, but we are sure that he is holding back.  When we meet his father (played by Peter Vaughan), we gain a little understanding of the impossible standards that Mr. Stevens has been raised to uphold.  Other than that, we get no back story and can only guess what has led him to stifle normal human interaction, all in the name of service to his employer.

It's clear from the beginning that Mr. Stevens is possibly the most devoted butler in cinema history (except maybe for Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred).  He holds Lord Darlington (James Fox) in the highest regard.  It seems that Lord Darlington holds himself in the highest regard, as well.  Although he is a perfect English gentleman, he is a bit of a fool.  Thinking themselves learned and wise, Darlington and other English aristocrats dabble in international politics, foolishly believing that they can negotiate with a monster like Hitler.  After finding himself on the wrong side of history, Darlington is branded a traitor.  It's not Lord Darlington's fate that will haunt us after the story ends, though, but that of Mr. Stevens.  Was he as much of a fool in his blind devotion to a kindly, albeit misguided, master?

Even Darlington's godson, Reginald Cardinal (Hugh Grant), knows that something is amiss.  There is a sad scene where he tries to get Mr. Stevens to understand, yet Stevens is so focused on his duties, so sure of Lord Darlington's good intentions, that he doesn't seem to grasp the severity of the situation, nor the impact events will have on society at large.  As he reveals late in the film, he doesn't see it as his place to listen in on his employer's conversations, or to form an opinion of things.  His entire existence revolves around his duties as a butler within the contained world of Darlington Hall.

The one person in the story who attempts to pierce Mr. Stevens' facade is Miss Kenton (Emma Thompson), the head housekeeper.  In terms of the Darlington Hall chain of command, they have pretty much equal standing.  It becomes clear to us that Miss Kenton is attracted to Mr. Stevens.  What is less clear is how he feels about her.  I think he is deeply attracted to her, and yet he suppresses those feelings at every turn, as if he's unsure how to handle them.  Why would he do that?  We never find out.  I'm not bringing this up as a complaint; I think it adds intrigue to the story.  Having a character who is a bit of a mystery is usually more interesting, but it only works when you have the right actor in the part, and Hopkins is brilliant.

The relationship between Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton is really the most pivotal one in the film.  Emma Thompson's performance is the more "human" of the two, relatable to a larger degree.  Her efforts to become closer to Stevens are not overt in any normal sense, but in the carefully controlled realm of Mr. Stevens' repression, they are nearly earth-shaking.  She is only seeking a worthy human connection, yet Stevens is somehow incapable of such a thing, possibly lacking the knowledge of how to even go about it.  Nowadays people would probably label him as autistic or something like that, but I'm not sure it's that simple.

Consider a couple of scenes.  When Lord Darlington decides that a pair of cleaning girls should be dismissed because they are Jewish, it's obvious that Mr. Stevens is disquieted by this.  He knows that it's morally wrong, but he doesn't think it's his place to say anything, certainly not to his employer.  Only months later does Miss Kenton discover that Mr. Stevens was upset by the dismissal, after Lord Darlington expresses regret for his decision.  It frustrates her that Stevens keeps so much to himself, and yet it offers us a small glimpse into his soul.  He does have feelings.

Many reviews pinpoint the scene between Mr. Stevens and Miss Kenton when she corners him and tries to find out what kind of book he's reading.  That scene leads to another that haunts me.  Feeling rejected by Mr. Stevens, Miss Kenton reveals that she is entertaining a proposal for marriage from Mr. Benn (Tim Pigott-Smith).  When she informs Mr. Stevens, she turns slightly cruel, describing the way she and Mr. Benn discuss Stevens behind his back.  What she's really trying to do is get a rise out of him, attempting to get him to show some kind of emotion.  But Mr. Stevens is professional to a fault (which we see earlier as he carries on with his duties even as his father is on his deathbed).  The only crack we see in the facade is when Stevens drops a bottle of wine in the basement.

Years later, when Darlington Hall is owned by retired United States Congressman Jack Lewis (Christopher Reeve, who is supremely effective in a critical dinner scene during Darlington's international conference), Mr. Stevens travels to the West Country hoping to reconnect with Miss Kenton and convince her to return to her old post.  Yes, they need a new housekeeper, although I think we know that Stevens, even if he doesn't realize it, secretly wants her back in his life.  Roger Ebert put it perfectly: "The closing scenes paint a quiet heartbreak.  The whole movie is quiet, introspective, thoughtful: A warning to those who put their emotional lives on hold, because they feel their duties are more important.  Stevens has essentially thrown away his life in the name of duty.  He has used his 'responsibilities' as an excuse for avoiding his responsibility to his own happiness."

There is so much more that could be said about the surrounding political environment, about people who live as servants, and the snoots who deign to employ them.  The story is even savvy enough to recognize how French leaders fooled themselves into making unwise accommodations for Hitler and the Nazis.  This film exposes a wide variety of subjects for examination.

The film was adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the Kazuo Ishiguro novel, produced by Ismail Merchant, and directed by James Ivory.  It was made when Merchant-Ivory productions were quite a thing, displaying a mastery of the period.  From top to bottom their productions are top-notch.  Ivory's direction is never flashy, always paying careful attention to subtle details and acting choices.  Jhabvala took a novel that is largely internal and made it accessible from a visual standpoint.  And the actors are uniformly excellent, allowing us a fascinating glimpse into lives different from our own.

I'll give the final words to Mr. Ebert: "The Remains of the Day is a subtle, thoughtful movie.  There are emotional upheavals in it, but they take place in shadows and corners, in secret.  It tells a very sad story—three stories, really.  Not long ago I praised a somewhat similar film, Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence, also about characters who place duty above the needs of the heart.  I got some letters from readers who complained the movie was boring, that 'nothing happens in it.'  To which I was tempted to reply: If you had understood what happened in it, it would not have been boring."