Customer Reviews

Metroland [VHS]

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

 

 

Some people assume that they will stay young and single forever. Sleeping around, partying, no familial responsibility...sounds pretty good right? "Metroland" takes a look at the life of Chris (Christian Bale). Chris is a married thirty-something living in a nice part of town and has a stable job. All seems content in his life. Then one day out of the blue, his old buddy Toni shows up. Toni tries to bring Chris back into his world of the single life filled with hot women, smoking pot and hanging out at parties. This causes Chris to take inventory of his current life and the decisions he has made. Some of this film is in flashback. It shows Chris as a 21 year old photographer in Paris, where he meets the carefree Annick (played wonderfully by Elsa Zylberstein). He eventually meets Marion (Emily Watson), who is another Brit like himself currently in France. She develops a very low-key bond with Chris and eventually they marry. Was it the right choice?

"Metroland" has a superb cast which plays their roles in just the right manner. Where this movie falters, however, is the mediocrity of the script. An introspective movie such as this should have much more powerful and memorable dialogue than it has. Hardly anything ever really comes out and grabs you. It just kinda rolls along and eventually reaches its conclusion. It could've been a great look at the choices we make and where it ends up placing us in life. As it is, however, it falls short of greatness...but it's still worth a look.

Christian Bale stars in "Metroland" as Chris, the early-middle-aged British suburbanite who is suddenly forced to dredge up all his bohemian, idealistic questionings from his early twenties when his old poet-buddy Tony (played by Phillip Saville) shows up. Emily Watson must have sparked many a crush among male cinema-goers, as Chris' mildly stodgy, yet keenly intelligent and feisty wife. Maybe it's just because I'm at a time in life (33) when someone like her is highly attractive, but, well, I thought she was a total babe. But beyond my reaction to her personally, the movie in general has the feel of a real slice of life. This is a set of occurences that many people can relate to, things that strike a real chord.

A few reviewers have commented that this movie lacked a real climax. What did you expect, car chases? Huge explosions? Some kind of cosmic epiphany, perhaps? I think the essence of the charm of this movie can be summed up by Chris' wife's simple obsevation that Tony, the rootless wanderer, is jealous of Chris. Romance and wild times are fine for a couple years when you're young. "Young" in this sense being a socially constructed state, after all -- many people in the world expect to be married and having children, or are busily preparing for it, in their very early twenties, instead of being out drinking and cavorting with Parisian babes. Still, if you are bourgeois enough not to have felt internal forces driving you to get married immediately after high school, as people in many neighborhoods do, after all -- then this movie will speak to you. The point of this movie is that sooner or later, at SOME point, be it at 18 or 30, everyone grows up, and maybe that fact is something other than the zenith of heinousness. I like this movie.

By the way, for anyone out there who likes the basic story of this film, my favorite Julian Barnes book (he wrote the book this movie came from) is "The Porcupine." It's a much more political, different kind of story, but it's really provocative. It makes good use of Barnes' characteristic ear for dialog, and his deft characterizations. If you like Julian Barnes, you should find a copy of "The Porcupine."

"Metroland," at any rate, is positively worth scoping out. Two thumbs up.

This is the first movie that I've seen that depicts a good marriage in a realistic way. Married people are not immune to wanting to have sex with other people, they just weigh those wants against the value of their marriage. This film takes a look at one man's quarter-life crisis spurred on by the arrival of his devil-may-care childhood buddy. It is an exhamination of what one has versus what he invisioned he would have, and a realization of whether or not he is happy. This film is a glimpse at life, not sappy or overly-dramatic, just good.

This is a really great, moving film about a kid and his pal who dream about getting out of their bourgeois, suburban, establishment, English way of life. They grow up, and one of the friends, Toni, is living the crazy vagabond artist life. The other, Chris, is living the life he always dreaded as an adolescent. But the thing is, he's happy. He's got a lovely wife, a baby, steady job and nice home. When Toni comes back and sees his friends "complacent" life, he feels obligated to shake him out of it. This is a very thoughtful and entertaining movie that makes you think: what really will make us happy is often what we resist the most.

If you liked the 1985 classic The Big Chill which took a look at "thirtysomething" America as it froze it's '60's free-spirit into a glacier of forgotten aspirations,then Metroland is worth your while.A simpler and more intimate film than it's American cousin,"Metroland" is the English equivalent of watching the hippie-dippy days of bell-bottomed pants,pot and free love melting into the frozen tundra of Bourgeoisieland- or so we are lead to believe.Simple in plot and heavy in truly adept acting,"Metroland" tells the story of the comfortable married life of Chris and Marion Lloyd (Christian Bale and Emily Watson),a young thirtyish couple in the middle class neighborhood of Edgewood.They have a child,successful careers and the "English garden".Sex is at least every other day.So, what could be the problem?
Chris' boyhood best-bud Toni arrives after ten absent years.Toni (a deliciously wicked Lee Ross) is still living the '60's radical ideals,and the two worlds of sell-out and love-in collide in very palpable ways.Chris is forced to question every choice he has made along the way;he once had aspiratins of being a Parisian photographer;he had a sexy and direct French paramour named Annick (Elsa Zylberstein of Immortal Beloved); Chris actually had developed a loathing of all that was English.WHAT HAPPENED?.Toni actively pursues Chris into rethinking all his choices and his marriage and family.
What makes this film so compelling is the uniformly outstanding performances by the four principle actors.Bale and Watson deliver positively knockout performances, as Siskel and Ebert noted.It's true!.The pain and anger that Chris and Marion confront is real.The question that this film raises is "Do we ever know if our decisions are right?" Like "The Big Chill","Metroland" is not a location,but a state of mind that suggests that being bourgeois is a cop-out for not living your dreams.Are you presently where you thought you would be 20 years ago-or are you restless and questioning? Are you sorry that you are in Metroland? Watch this film,then.
There is loads of sex and frontal nudity in this film,so be warned if you are provincial.

you'll love METROLAND, a gentle, bittersweet British film that explores the extremes of middle-age male sexual frustration in the same way - sans violence, of course. Christian Bale, oft cited as one of the biggest stars on the Internet, demonstrates why with an incredible range portraying Chris Lloyd at ages 17, 21 and 35. Subtle changes of mannerism and perspective make Bale's work very satisfying - none of that 18-to-80 aging make-up for Bale!

Emily Watson as Chris' wife is deviously delicious as the manipulative girlfriend and wife. The rest of the cast is superb - from the effervescent Elsa Zylberstein to the grumpy Lee Ross - METROLAND is a must see for Baleheads and intelligent drama.

Barnes' quest in his novel does not necessarily revolve around "sexual boredom" as Marion puts it, or a trite middle-class, mid-life "self-crisis". It is a touching evaluation of a past, with its odds and ends, an appreciation of reminiscences that leads us to where we stand, where we exist and how we interact with others as well as ourselves. On the other hand, Saville's depiction appears rather judgemental. His view, unlike Barnes, polishes Chris' choice "to eat at the Ritz". We all feel, maybe sometimes desperately, the need to belong to someone, that warm intimacy, the comfort of loving safety. However, what Saville does not answer is the point that whether we have to be like Chris to admit this need, whether we constantly have to remember our "glorious"(!), youthful past to realize that life's slipping off our hands or whether being a "rolling stone" is always an alternative for the petite bourgeoisie attitude. But in overall, if you can keep yourself distant from Saville's perspective, the film is witty, entertaining & interestingly enjoyable. Maybe the only quote that really exceeds the novel's cynicism is that when Marion tells Chris "You're not that original". Watson is great as the "sterile" wife, always measured, very British. Zylberstein is purely awesome! . Do not expect the novel as it is, for it is deformed. But it's a sincere attempt to help us admit our simple needs like a cosy home, affection and even "settling down" no matter how "middle-class" they may appear to others.

I have not read the book that this film was based upon, so I won't comment in that vein, but I will say that I enjoyed the film very much... until it got to France.

There is an entire sequence in the film, a key part I might add, where Christian Bale's character looks back to his days in Paris, young and hungry on life while trying to be a photographer. There are entire conversations in French with nary an English subtitle in sight, and I just sat there trying to follow along. (There are subtitles that you can access, but they follow the scene in French as well)

You don't get lost too much and the characters revert to English eventually, but what a tremendously odd way of presenting what was actually looked to be some of the best parts of the film. Perhaps the film never had the English subtitles to begin with? And if so, why? (These are rhetorical, folks.)

A good film but Lion's Gate needs to get their act together with the DVD's (no widescreen-humbug!). Bye!

Generally, I was disappointed. I thought the denouement was lame. I kept expecting something dramatic to happen and at one point, I thought, hey - the climax could go in so many directions. I was starting to feel a good anticipation and then it anticlimaxed for me. Metroland was cool after all. Snore. While the Chris character was a bore - his wife, with her banked fires, had him pegged - he wasn't very original, I really liked Toni. If only they hadn't portrayed him as a girl of the month club member. If they had focused more on passion and career choices, instead of the typical sex and women choices, it could have been more complex and compelling. Instead, it opted for the ironically 'safe' route - Oh goody! It's okay to be bourgeois. Well, maybe for Chris but I see a midlife crisis down the road for the wife, who seemed a much more interesting character than her husband. I guess I just didn't buy the premise. Sure Toni was jealous but they could've had Chris realize that he had sold himself out TOO much and just move the family to Paris for another go at photography. Now THAT would've been a better movie.

must have for a balehead.love the whole idea of the movie, but agree the story cld hv been more stronger.