Customer Reviews

Guinevere [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I cant believe how incredibly good and convincing sarah polley was in this.After seeing GO! I thought she couldnt act,boy was I wrong.her performance was A list as was the rest of the cast The story and look was realistic.What can you say other than DYNOMITE!

I haven't seen Rea since his role in "don't reveal the secret!" _Crying Game_, although I've heard that he did well in _Still Crazy_. _Guenevere_, though, explores an odd mentor-lover relationship between starving artist Rea and blue-blood, WASPy Polley. The age difference here wasn't the only issue, oddly enough--rather it was the strange turns that inevitably develop between people who knowingly enter a relationship where tutoring is an intended part of the romance. Rea's artist has a long history of shacking up with young women and turning them into "true" artists, be they painters, sculptors, dancers, or in Polley's case, photographers. And although I normally would balk at the willingness with which these women handed themselves over to Rea's well-worn lines and drunken philosophies, _Guenevere_ managed to avoid the squeamishness that I feel, for example, whenever I see Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones together. Be sure to pay attention to Jean Smart's dead-on analysis of daughter Polley and Rea's relationship; it's eloquent and brutal.

I'd highly recommend this film to anyone, but especially to any
female artist, musician, actor who has come of age. This isn't
so much about a May-December romance: it is about the student/mentor bond which can be incredibly strong and intense,
and an aging artist who through Harper, is trying to hold onto
his past youth and the artistic potential he once had.

This could have been such a sappy movie, but the acting and writing kept that from happening. I agree with another reviewer - it was NOT predictable, and the acting was so real.

Sarah Polley is great, but Stephen Rea absolutely broke my heart.
These characters were not romanticized: they were multi-dimentional, human. There was good and not so good about them.
Connie Fitzgerald did manipulate and seduce Harper, but it was also clear that he really loved her. It was clear as well, that Harper knew what she was getting herself into and it was her choice ultimately.

My only reservation was that some of the family members (father,
sister) were one-dimensional to the point where it was hard to
believe. Perhaps that was how Harper saw them, or perhaps that
was done to set-off the volatile emotional intensity of the mother (Jean Smart, who was also good), and the repressed/about-to-emerge artistic intensity of Harper.

I am a die-hard Stephen Rea fan after seeing this film.

Many have either misunderstood or overlooked this gem. If only Hollywood had the brains and/or balls to put out such gems. I loved this movie and could easily watch it many times over. The dialog was intelligent, piercingly truthful. Bravo to the screenwriter! All of the actors: Stephen Rea, Sarah Polly, Jean Smart, Gina Gerson gave compelling, strong performances.

"Guinevere" is the nickname given by Stephen Rea's character (Connie), an alcoholic bohemian type way past his prime, to his significantly younger female companions. See the King Arthur and Guinevere analogy? You see the relationship fraught with the parasitic and symbiotic moments. Jean Smart, who played Guinevere's mom, gave an amazing monolog dissecting the nature of such a relationship.

For those reviewers who said that this film was unrealistic; I disagree. Anyone who has ever found oneself fascinated by inappropriate, older lovers at some point in one's life will understand this film. Some of my friends and I have been "Guinevere" for our own reasons, and we saw the emotional truth in this film.

Lots of compellinh performances especiallt the goddess Sarah Polley who will be a Superstar one day.This movie proves why indie movies rock

If you have seen the anthology film "New York Stories", you may recall the memorable Martin Scorcese segment about the older painter (Nick Nolte) and his young female "protege" (Rosanna Arquette). "Guinevere" is basically an extended feature-length meditation on the same story; it just swaps a photographer for a painter and a San Francisco locale for NYC. Stephen Rea portrays the manipulative Svengali with his usual glazed, expressionless mask (one of those actors who directs all his energy into the character's "rich inner life", or just a consistently wooden performer? Discuss). Sarah Polley gives an understated performance as Rea's young "student".Some of Woody Allen's "Manhattan" territory is also retread, but the performances are compelling enough to keep your interest. There is a near Oscar-worthy supporting performance from Jean Smart, as Polley's outspoken mother, who really eats up her limited screen time; she is quite memorable in a key confrontation with Rea's character where she verbally takes him apart, but in a sly and subtle fashion. The movie is marred by slight over-length and a final scene that seems out-of-place and a bit too theatrically "stagey"; but definitely is worth a look on a slow night.

I got to see Guinevere about 2 months ago in the theater and found it to be an uplifting, inspiring, and refreshing story. Sara Polley is a great actress - who also lends her incredible voice for the background vocals to some of the music in the movie.

Guinevere is about an older photographer be-friending and falling in love with Sarah Polley, who is a teenager. It's a movie about two people coming together during a certain period in their life - regardless of how old they are.

I found the movie to drag on a little longer than it could have - but it's still definitely worth seeing!

The best scene in "Guinevere" belongs to Jean Smart and it is also the scene that exposes the fatal flaw in this 1999 drama from writer-director Audrey Wells ("Under the Tuscan Sun"). Smart plays Deborah Sloane, who has discovered that her 20-year-old daughter Harper (Sarah Polley) is shacked up with Connie Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea), a photograph and drunk (not always in that order) who is older than Deborah. Harper is the latest in a series of young girls that Connie has taken under his wing as his "Guinevere," but Deborah does not know about all that. What she knows is that someone older than she is happens to be having sex with her daughter, and Deborah has a theory as to why this is happening and why Connie does not like women his own age. When she asks what Harper has that she does not, her answer is "awe." Harper can look at Connie with awe, whereas Deborah, who has been around, cannot. The problem is that neither can we.

You have to understand that Deborah is a rather unsympathetic figure in this film, destroying a dinner with her family by her insistence that they read the fortunes in their fortune cookies and add "in bed" to the end. But she is devastating right about Connie and that is why this film does not work for me. I have no problem with the idea that a story about an artist who goes through a series of young women who act as his muses and protégés. We meet most of the rest of these Guineveres during the course of the film and some of them are played by Gina Gershon, Sandra Oh and Jasmine Guy. But what we do not get to see is any evidence that Connie is any sort of artistic genius. There are some decent black & white photographs but basically you have to take the film's position that he is worth of emulation let alone awe. The most demonstrative talent Connie shows in the film is to (euphemism warning) make her extremely happy while she is still dressed (okay, not so much a euphemism as being extremely vague).

There is even less of an idea in the film that Harper would be a worthy protégé, or muse for that matter. This is rather odd because as an actress Sarah Polley usually makes her characters seem pretty smart (not Julia Stiles smart but certainly in the Jodie Foster range), and here she only comes across as clueless without a sense of direction. Connie must look better to Harper than her family or going to Harvard, but that is not really saying much, and when we see her at the end of the film and she is clearly a confident young woman, there is no real reason to give Connie the credit. So I cannot help but think that if Connie wants to do the Svengali routine, he could do better than Harper. If I am thinking that, then clearly "Guinevere" is not working despite the solid cast. The fault is not in the performances, but in the script.

Admittedly the problem can be that I am of the wrong gender to appreciate a film that is essentially a female coming of age story. Certainly that is an almost microscopic movie genre in comparison to male coming of age stories (which might actually cover most movies being made today now that I stop and think about it). I also have a problem with the idea that given a choice between Jean Smart and Sarah Polley (abstracted to the general level of a woman in her forties versus a woman in her twenties) the choice is obvious, and that would be because I know what the former has that the latter does not. But the main complaint remains that while I might be able to buy Harper and Connie are lovers I cannot accept them as student and teacher, and ultimately that is what is supposed to make "Guinevere" more than just another older man/younger woman movie, even if it is told from her perspective.

When I read Sarah Polley's remark about how "Avonlea" became too Americanized in its latter seasons, I didn't understand what she meant, so I decided to rent a couple of her movies to see how a Canadian influence was different than an American one, and since watching this (and "The Sweet Hereafter"), I have to say, I am not impressed. Sometimes indie films try to be so artsy-fartsy, they end up being overlong and boring, which is what this was, not to mention pointless. A movie can be light on plot, but it still has to be entertaining, or at least though-provoking. This was neither. Jean Smart was the only interesting character in this entire film. Harper Sloane (how pretentious a name is that? Not saying I don't like it though) seems to have went through her entire life never being praised for anything (is that possible?), which is why it takes Connie Fitzpatrick, a very unattractive, old and washed-up, pseudo-intellectual photographer taking a flattering, candid picture of her, to give her confidence and help her find herself/her inner artist. Connie was nothing more than a sleaze, picking up vulnerable young girls, turning them into his muses (an inexpensive, long-term prostitute) and then moving on to his next "Guinevere". Had Harper had any self-esteem, this guy wouldn't have gotten her into his bed, even if Sarah Polley is somewhat homely.

Jean Smart's character, though a lush, was lucid enough to understand why Connie went for the young girls (besides the obvious physical reason), and that is because of their awe. To someone like me, a grown woman, I would see through the intellectual, sensitive artist facade, but to someone younger just starting college, probably on their own for the first time, he would seem hip and sophisticated.

The closing scene where all the Guineveres (which I likened to a group of polygamous sister-wives) get together for a reunion is just silly, and the afterlife ending was absurd. Was there a particular reason, or symbolism, why he dabbled in every color of the rainbow (all the different hues and races of the women he screwed)? This movie took itself way too seriously.

I was really impressed with this movie, but wasn't a big fan of the very artificial scenes that provided the movie's epilogue (for me they really robbed the story of its power). Other than that, though, "Guinevere" is a gem, and a unique one. It's beautifully photographed, and although the story itself is bittersweet and deals with a cliched situation, nothing about what we see is a cliche. Audrey Wells has written a wonderful script here, warm and funny, sensitive, and very honest, and it's gorgeously acted by Polley and Rea.

Polley's sweet, nervous, and insecure Harper is the key to the story -- awkward and shy and filled with self-doubt, she's really unlike anyone I've ever seen Polley play -- her characters, even in Atom Egoyan's films, are usually so confident. It's fun to see her act the goofy kid here, giggly and nervous and all hands and feet.

And Stephen Rea (whom I've loved ever since "Crying Game") is equally good, and in fact probably has the tougher job of making us like this guy who really should be fairly repellent. The fact that he somehow remains someone to care about -- that the script cares enough not to make him a villain, but a complex person - really elevates the film to another level. Whether or not it's a comfortable topic, his character does honestly care about Harper, and he is one of the few characters in the film who seems to realize how special she is.

"Guinevere" also features a gorgeous soundtrack by Christophe Beck (and featuring Sarah Polley on vocals!), is beautifully photographed (Polley has never looked prettier), and features a great supporting cast. Jean Smart, as Polley's onscreen mother, is especially worth noting: She turns in a performance so biting and proper and acidic and yet secretly painful that if she isn't nominated for a supporting actress Oscar, there is no justice. Her big scene with Rea is, on its own, worth the price of the film.