Wetherby

1985

Action / Drama / Mystery

10
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 67% · 12 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 46% · 500 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.5/10 10 1749 1.7K

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Plot summary

The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.


Uploaded by: OTTO
October 25, 2014 at 06:08 AM

Director

Top cast

Alan Rickman as TV commentator
Judi Dench as Marcia Pilborough
Vanessa Redgrave as Jean Travers
Joely Richardson as Young Jean Travers
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
811.38 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
24.000 fps
1 hr 42 min
Seeds ...
1.65 GB
1920*1080
English 2.0
NR
24.000 fps
1 hr 42 min
Seeds 1

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Rodrigo_Amaro 9 / 10

An inquisitive film about the important and uncontrolling life events which modifies us for better or worse

"Wetherby" is an intriguing wake up call to each one of us to pay more attention to life and the events surrounding it, before it gets too late and we're forced to face the facts, to see the importance people have in our lives in its quietest and small moments even though we think they're not important or they can't affect us. Because they can and life has its ways of showing how. What David Hare is saying here is that the things that matter and will change you will happen when you're distracted or least expecting it. With luck, you'll know how to react.

In the suburb of Wetherby a casual dinner took place having as participants some upper class members, an enjoyable evening in the house of teacher Jean Travers (Vanessa Redgrave). The following day one of the guests, the mysterious John Morgan (Tim McInnerny) returns there, exposes that he wasn't known of any of the attendees - to Jean's surprise who thinks this was impossible - and then he kills himself in front of her. Such fact triggers down alternate ways: a police detective (Stuart Wilson) becomes obsessed with this strange case and decides to get some clues on why Morgan acted this way; Karen, a colleague of Morgan (Suzanne Hamilton) visits Jean informing her about the very few she knew about the young man, but she's just mysterious as he was, doesn't reveal much about herself; a minor impact on the lives of Mrs. Travers friends (Ian Holm, Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson); and Jean remembrances of her past with her involvement with a soldier, a life changing experience. The latter, although it doesn't seem and strangely played out to confuse audiences, is related with the suicide despite decades apart. But this in a psychological way and this movie is perfect when it comes to those terms.

The good points: pay attention to the details and you'll love how most of it was carefully constructed but be warned, there's no easy answers and sometimes there's no answers at all, we're left to take our own conclusions about the character's actions. Redgrave and Wilson were excellent, very insightful and very believable when it comes to present a genuine state of shock, his trying to find reasonable explanations and her after seeing the tragedy (although the movie downplayed and hid her reaction after the fact, awkwardly cutting to her past without further notice). The veteran actors in the supporting roles are outstanding, creating memorable moments. The young McInnerny was an on/off kind of acting. I believed him in almost everything he did, he sure causes an impression on you with this intelligent, disturbed, apparently peaceful guy but in some scenes he was too weird, almost in a laughable way. It's a puzzling and provocative study on the human perceptions and why they're more important to some (John Morgan) than to others (almost all the other characters).

The bad points: this was close in being a great work but so close that is a little saddening to present the following upsetting remarks. I can't complain about the story and the deep connections between different characters, times and space we have to form to understand the whole, however I felt Hare shouldn't be the one to direct this or at least he should tone down a little easier on the technical aspects. A more technical director would benefit substantially from a script like this. The fore-mentioned transition between events is an example on how to not present a story. The time leap between the two events was really odd to see, it looked like seeing another film strangely cut to later get back where it stopped, and even experienced viewers will find this problematic. Of course, not as much as the loud and melodramatic soundtrack which is completely misplaced and creates feelings and sensations that aren't there. For both cases, it was all a matter of editing problem, the way things are put together doesn't work for too long. The girl who played Karen was awful, shouting and overreacting at all times. The screenplay doesn't make of her a sympathetic character, often making her an enigma that doesn't add much to the mystery to be solved.

Those with patience, time and eyes to see will enjoy it to the maximum and even forgive its problems. This isn't hollow, this isn't pretentious, it's just hides its points very deep like a treasure to be sought. The reward will come for those who work and think a little harder. 9/10

Reviewed by lasttimeisaw 8 / 10

a beguiling myth

British renowned playwright David Hare's feature film debut, WETHERBY was bestowed with Golden Berlin Bear, an honor shared with Rainer Simon's THE WOMAN AND THE STRANGER in 1985.

In the centre of the story is a mysterious suicidal case, a disaffected young man John Morgan (McInnerney) has shot himself in front of Jean Travers (Redgrave), a middle-aged high school teacher he contacts only one day earlier as an unbidden guest to her dinner party with her married friends. This premise sounds quite unrealistic in real life, but in Hare's text, everything has been subsumed into a symbolical existence, which leaves the narrative often fragmented, jump between present and past, before-or-after Morgan's blunt action, achieved by a rapid editing modus operandi. Ellipsis and lacunae, abrupt plot devices, implicit dialogues, those are the weapons in Hare's possession to challenge viewers' understanding and assimilation of the whole myth, which also renders his social criticism of its era unobtrusively rapier-like.

The suicide's repercussions evoke Jean's buried memory of her youth (play by Redgrave's daughter Richardson, who is brilliantly elegant in her very early screen presence) in 1950s, when she lost her lover Jim (Hines) who volunteers to fight in British Malaya instigated by some airy-fairy nationalism. She never marries, her life has been perpetuated in the rut ever since, but Jean is not a disillusioned soul, she loves teaching and is beloved by her pupils, she enjoys the company of her friends, particularly, Marcia (Dench, who earns a baffling BAFTA nomination since she is barely required to do anything special here), her best friend since teenage years, and Stanley (Holm), Marcia's solicitor husband, he and Jean would meet in bars for some drink, have a tête-à-tête or simply enjoy the comforting silence.

Yet, in the eyes of this reticent John Morgan, she shares the same loneliness that has afflicted on him for a long time, to a point he is mulling over the option of suicide, but again Hare's elusive approach only leaves hints, no exposition, we sees Morgan, a college student, follows Marcia with unrevealed motive and it is through her, his interest alights on Jean eventually, and Hare rebelliously disrupts the narrative thread with sporadic flashbacks until finally discloses what has happened between Jean and John that night, alone, and defiantly, that offers no direct satisfaction to audience either, but trickles of clues might or might not account for John's decision.

The great Vanessa Redgrave, engages in a palpably compassionate rendition of Jean's weather- seasoned inscrutability spiked with a tinge of singular vim and vigor, there is a certain modernity in her character which makes her an almost indestructible entity, not even decades of loneliness, that's where she differs from John, she is a real trooper who admirably holds sway of her own life. Tim McInnerny (mostly remembered as Lord Percy in BLACK ADDER TV series), is consistently nuanced in his feature film debut, John's pain has never emerged from his blank veneer, but he intrigues our attention every time he materialises.

Saddled with lugubrious dirges and symphonic longueur, WETHERBY is an oddly beguiling film, delving into the mystic vicissitude of human's mentality with its oblique syntax and an absolutely fascinating lead performer.

Reviewed by gavin6942 6 / 10

A Puzzle?

The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.

Roger Ebert called it "a haunting film, because it dares to suggest that the death of the stranger is important to everyone it touches – because it forces them to decide how alive they really are." That is one way of looking at it. Others have called the film a "puzzle" with pieces out of order and perhaps even missing.

I liked the idea of a man who kills himself for no reason, and everyone around left to wonder. I am less thrilled about some of the follow-up. His life as a mystery seems better to me than exploring it, but others may disagree.

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