Customer Reviews

Hotel Du Lac [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An adaptation more faithful to the original book you will not find. This wistfully acted, beautifully photographed British television production of Anita Brookner's Booker Prize winning novel is a delight to watch over and over again to pick up on nuances perhaps overlooked in a single viewing. Anna Massey, here middle-aged (remember her as Tom Courtenay's young victim in Michael Powell's Peeping Tom?) is perfectly cast as Edith, a romance writer who knows her market and who is in self-imposed exile after leaving her prospective groom waiting, with all her friends, outside the church because she thinks she has something better than a loveless marriage to keep her occupied. At the Hotel du Lac she encounters the most eccentric characters, who are also on the run from themselves, including a rapidly aging ingenue and her mother, played by the marvelous Googie Withers (see her also in Expresso Bongo with the very young Cliff Richard), a young woman with 'an eating disorder' that keeps her from starting a family, and the elderly Countess played to perfection by Irene Handl in one of her very last roles. Edith also receives an alternative offer of marriage from a jaded businessman played by Denholm Elliott. All of the actors are top notch but the Swiss background is the real star here. For quiet contemplative drama with brittle yet insightful dialogue much of it carried over from the book, don't miss Hotel du Lac. I only wish this was available on DVD, my preferred format for collecting these days.

Could not play it on my DVD player. have contacted the company it came from. Have yet to send it back. That is time consuming. They claim it said on the explanation. I don't remember reading. I will be careful about ordering from another company I have ordered many times from amazon.
C. Rowley

What a great story. I hadn't seen it in years and was so pleased to discover it again. It is a movie to get lost in. A time and a place to lazily drift through and just enjoy being. There is a beauty in her freedom and freedom of choice. And love, true love in the end win out.

A sharp, subtle gem; I picked up a VHS copy somewhere in my travels and finally got around to watching it. Because it is VHS there is a faded quality to the production which interestingly enhances the film as it is a faded story in a faded time. Ah, but the dialogue - the interactions and interplay of the characters - smacks you upside your head with its wit and its thought. No fading there.