Product Details

• Actors: Liam Neeson, Patricia Arquette, Gil Rood, Tate Donovan, Stephen Mendillo
• Directors: John Madden
• Writers: Edith Wharton, Richard Nelson
• Producers: Jolly Dale, Lindsay Law, Richard Price, Stan Wlodkowski
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Miramax
• VHS Release Date: May 21, 1996
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302805406
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #208,687 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Here's the film of a novel nobody liked in high school (but probably succumbed to when they read it in later life, as they should). Based on the book by Edith Wharton, it's one of those repressed romances of longing and regret carried out in real time and real life. Liam Neeson plays the humble Ethan, manipulated into marrying a plain and sickly woman (Joan Allen, every bit as good as she is in The Contender), who still manages to dominate him. When she grows so ill that Ethan requires help to care for her, they import her poor cousin (Patricia Arquette), who sparks thoughts in Ethan that never occurred to him with his wife. Neeson has a great fire within, as he confronts an array of possibilities that simply remain out of reach because the alternative is unthinkable in this tight-knit New England community. Arquette bubbles with life, while Allen can freeze blood at 100 paces with one of her icy glances. Slow-moving at times but worth it for the final payoff. Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love). --Mark Englehart

From The New Yorker

Edith Wharton's novel was published in 1911, and it has taken a long time to reach the screen. Not long enough, though. John Madden's version, written by Richard Nelson, is a dull and dutiful affair; there's no reason that a movie should stay faithful to a text, but in this case the adaptation has taken everything that's woeful and wintry about the book and left behind the excitement-all the taut sexual restraint, and the headlong death wish of the final sled ride. Liam Neeson plays Ethan, with Joan Allen as his shrewish wife, Zeena, and Patricia Arquette as Mattie Silver, who tempts him into tragedy. Of these, only Neeson grips your attention; he lumbers through the film like a suffering Samson-somewhere in there you can see the ghost of old power and passion. You have to go back to Boris Karloff to discover a similar blend of brutishness and delicacy. If only the rest of the movie could pitch itself up to Neeson's level; this is cinema on its best behavior, guaranteed to wear you down. Back to the book. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Are you a Born Romantic ?, January 25, 2001

By 

Kel'sGarden - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethan Frome [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If you love Romance, you simply must have this video! Yes, Ethan and Mattie are what we call "star crossed lovers" in a way, so all the more reason why their courtship escalates so far beyond the mundane.

I promise you this: there are at least two love scenes in this film that are so amorous and seductive that you will most certainly rewind the tape just to reassure yourself that it was accomplished completely without nudity.

Liam Neeson (Ethan) is at his expected best, portraying a character who is astonishingly sexy and lovable regardless of his physical deformity or intensely tragic circumstances. And Patricia Arquette (Mattie) exquisitely personifies a beautiful and kind young woman approaching her first peak of sexuality.

All of the actors are wonderful and the film follows the book very closely. Buy the video, read the book, and then if you are a true Romantic you will watch the video again and again.

Do read the previous reviews from other customers, I enjoyed reading all of them.

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very Poor Rendering of My All-Time Favorite Book, November 11, 2008

By 

Charmagne R. Anderson "blue eyes" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ethan Frome (DVD)

CAUTION: SPOILER ALERT!

Ethan Frome is the most poignant, beautiful, tragic story I've ever read, and is by far Edith Wharton's best work. Yet somehow, despite the fact that Liam Neeson plays the title role and does very well, the filmmakers managed to do a poor job conveying this story.

The decision to replace the book's level-headed, sympathetic introducer of the story with a whiny-voiced, invasive preacher was ridiculous. Patricia Arquette's rendition of Mattie Silver(my favorite female character of all time!!) was completely wrong, although she did have a few good moments. Arquette didn't have the dark hair or the luminous beauty of Mattie, and her acting did almost no justice whatsoever to Mattie's simple but profound character. The nervous laughing in particular drove me crazy. Mattie needs to be portrayed by someone who can fully express her personality -- so warm, intelligent, and vibrant against the wintry cold setting and Ethan's equally frigid wife, Zeena. Ethan's character also needed further exploring through better dialogue and visual story-telling.

Joan Allen was pitch perfect as Zeena, Ethan's abominable hypochondriac wife. If they ever do another film version of this story, I'd want to bring her back. But again, they needed to play up Zeena's manipulative, vindictive, withholding, and silently watchful side even more than they did in order to increase the tension in the household as Ethan and Mattie become increasingly inseparable.

There are two things that I take the most serious issue with in this film. One -- Mattie and Ethan do NOT have sex in the book. At any time. They kiss, in one of the most sensual moments in all of literature, but they do not have sex, Wharton makes it quite clear. Which is why their story is so pure, so poignant, so frustrated, and so desperate. And in this film, they do sleep together, twice. One of those scenes is an appropriately sensual, tense moment, and the other is very sad and desperate but also very... weird and somewhat disturbing. But my point is that changing a crucial factor of the plotline and character development works against the film -- if they were looking for greater intensity, they actually undercut it. Ethan and Mattie sleeping together, especially with so little on-screen development of their romance, makes their love story look more like a lust story and takes away the gorgeous tension of the book.

Which brings me to number two -- the build-up to the lovers' attempted suicide is the most emotionally intense literature I have ever read. The film needs to make it clear that Ethan and Mattie are blocked at every turn by grinding poverty and social boundaries from being able to escape together. A screen adaptation of this book needs to make their love so palpable, so fathomless, that the audience completely understands that they have no alternative BUT suicide if they want to stay together. And then that scene needs to be tremendous.

There were other things that needed to be made perfectly clear, as well -- especially the state of Mattie's mental and physical condition at the end of the story. This film version doesn't make it clear that she is made a quadraplegic with a completely changed personality through the head trauma she experienced in the accident. That is the most horrible sorrow of the entire book, and it needs to be emphasized in order to show the terribleness of Ethan's suffering.

Finally, this book reads like the most gorgeous cinema you could ever encounter -- and a film version ABSOLUTELY MUST be visually stunning, drawn-out, and poignant with the most sumptuous direction, cast, cinematography, color palette, and music that can be found. And this version just didn't cut it, I'm very sorry to say.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neeson Outdoes the Book!, November 18, 2000

By 

Sean Ares Hirsch - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethan Frome [VHS] (VHS Tape)

For those of you who read my review on this book, you know that I gave the book 4 stars. Well, Neeson outdid the book! Neeson takes the book a BIG step farther. We see Ethan in his disfigured and isolated state, and then time goes backwards and we see how Ethan went from a somewhat normal state to this tragic and lamentable state. The priest adds a welcome touch of sympathy. The images are outstanding, and the background music flatters the images well. Comic relief moments are inserted in this lamentable tragedy well. One thing I must say about this movie is that even though it does not have lots of action or effects, IT IS NEVER BORING!! Ethan's quarrles with his wife are memorable, and his reluctant affair is unforgettable. There is even a wonderful scene in the middle that foreshadows Ethan's crippled state, the hostility between Ethan's wife and the housekeeper, and the tree that changes everyone's life for the worse. One brief, but vital scene is when Ethan and his wife argue bitterly, and the housekeeper along with one of Ethan's helpers overhear it. The final scene is likely to draw tears even from the most experienced person in drama and tragedy. Neeson deserves much credit for turning a 4 star book into an exquisite masterpiece. With all the movies I have seen, I can not boast of knowing more than 16 exquisite masterpieces, and this is one of them.