Customer Reviews

The Rector's Wife

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

 

 

THE RECTOR'S WIFE is one the most memorable British television productions from the 1990s. The lovely and accomplished Lindsay Duncan's understated, yet powerful performance as Anna Bouverie captures all the character's frustrations, disappointments and, finally, flowering in the wake of new love and the potential of a new life away from a loveless marriage and oppressive community. The film offers insightful comment about the nature of marriage and of the role of religion in modern society without being preachy or judgmental; if one chooses to ignore these themes, the film can just be enjoyed as fine, compelling drama. With Miss Duncan, there is fine support from the wonderful Stephen Dillane and from Ronald Pickup and, as always, Prunella Scales. Well worth repeated viewings.

On my copy of this DVD set the first DVD had the first and second episodes reversed. Make sure if you watch this that the episode identified as #2 is the one you watch first. Episode # 1 should begin with The Rector's wife doing some office work. Episode #2 begins with a sort of pastoral country village scene. The second DVD doesn't have any problem.

A classic story of a woman's efforts to remain a good wife while taking new risks. Anna Bouverie has spent the last 20 years of her life struggling to keep her family financially afloat, in spite of her husband's less than lavish salary in the parish.
The last straw occurs when he is passed over for a promotion and Anna has to face the fact that she will have to take things into her own hands as well. But how does she do this without tipping the balance? Unfortunately, her efforts brings about the disapproval of those in the parish as well as the anger of her husband.
Anna is forced to form a new identity for herself, not an easy task after all the time she's spent within the protection (and confines) of her marriage. A very believable look at the challenges faced by one woman trying to break out of her shell.

I was pleasently surprised by this mini series. A very well written story about a woman's (Muriel Pavlow) life as a rectors wife and how it isn't really her life at all. Every move she makes and everything she says is controlled by her husband and the congregation. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by this, her husband is so self-absorbed with the church that he forgets his duties as a husband. So, she turns to the outside world and discovers a whole new refreshing life. She finds a job as a stocker to raise money for her daughter to attend a private school and she loves it. Now, the church and her husband are very upset that she is disgracing the church which makes her drift even farther away from them. I was very impressed with the acting and characters. I could feel the frustration she was feeling and wanted to scream with her. Stephen Dillane plays the brother of one of the heads of the church. He's a rebel and wins the heart of the rectors wife. His acting is wonderful, as usual. Apparently, some of the scenes were edited out. I would have liked to have seen them. I don't know if it was for content or to keep the length to a minimum but, I would have enjoyed the whole thing even more. What I liked about this story is the realism of people and the church. A must see to appreciate.

The reader will not need to trawl through too many reviews about Giles Foster's 1994 adaptation of Joanna Trollope's (b.1943) novel of the same name before he or she realizes that there is considerable disagreement about the merits and flaws of this production.

Anyway, without giving too much away, the essence of the main plot is thus; Anna is the Rev Peter Boverie's apparently long-suffering wife. She is in her early forties. Increasingly, Anna discerns that she has become, over the twenty years or so of their 'togetherness', rather too tightly and robustly clamped by and within the ecclesiastical mechanism of the Church of England - along with its encumbent ritual duties, expectations, taboos and the like. The plot in both the book and in this DVD of Channel 4's production deals with the personal vicissitudes and the personal, practical outworkings of what could liberally be described as Anna's 'struggle for self-realization', although that description would not satisfy all the critics as there are myriad other topics and issues raised which receive a passing nod in both book and screenplay (extra-marital affairs, adolescence, public and private education et al).

To be subjective for a while, this reviewer enjoyed this adaptation and, by and large, the performances of the cast. The general tenor and 'accumulative' depiction of the inner nature of the characters is achieved pretty well nigh on flawlessly. The rolling pastoral beauty of the southern Cotswolds is framed admirably (some of the filming was done aroun Witney, apparently) and Richard Harvey's subtile - non-intrusive and mellifluous 'background' soundtrack helps to secure a genuinely 'bucolic' presence, underpinning the action and the outworking of the plot.

Nevertheless, it is true to say that a reasonable degree of negative criticism has been levelled at the implausibility of Anna Boverie's (played by Lindsay Duncan)rather sudden 'rebellion' against a 'life married to the Church and Jesus'. Whether this such criticism is just or not, it would certainly apply to both book and film; in both, the featured character sets her face stonily against many of the practices she has embraced, either voluntarily or compulsorily. Her depleted and recently disappointed husband can only, it seems, interpret this as calculated recalcitrance. Precisely how feasible and realistic Anna's rather axiomatic transformation is, in the viewer's mind, will vary - this reviewer suspects - according to that viewer's own disposition. Such transformation is certainly not impossible; people's outlook and attitudes change with time, experience and, sometimes, without a particular abundance of either!

'The Rector's Wife' was the authoress' fourth ('non-historical') novels and certain literary critics have loved to draw parallels with the world of Barchester made famous by her ancestor. Indeed, Joanna Trollope is well at ease in an ecclesiastical, especially an Anglican environment and both the book and DVD are thoroughly drenched in details discernible only to one more fully immersed in the font of Anglican 'Churchianity' than is usually the case. Indeed, the authoress herself hails from the Cotswold village of Minchinhampton in Gloucestershire where she was born in her grandfather's rectory! Her first novel, 'The Choir' (1988) was made into a six-part adaptation and is now also available on DVD.

In summary, I would heartily recommend this adaptation and production to most viewers. The redoubtable Jonathan Coy turns in a sympathetic and convincing performance as Peter Bouverie, 'The Rector', as does Miles Anderson as the minted, beneficent and - to Anna, at least - tempting, flamboyant, newly-arrived neighbour, Patrick O'Sullivan who is, somewhat inauspiciously located in what was the village's previous rectory! There are a number of other strong performances, too. In closing, if you buy this 2 disc set, I hope that you find it both as interesting and as stimulating as I originally did.

Michael Calum Jacques (aka Mike MacKinnon, former radio presenter)

Hello! I just want to alert everyone to the fact that as wonderful as this production of The Rector's Wife is, the dvd version of it has the scenes mixed up and it's difficult to navigate around to find the correct order! I know the book well, and would assume the televised version would certainly follow that order, whatever necessary alterations would have to be made to translate the print into the movie otherwise. I accidentally put this review on the seller's page, but it should have been placed on this product page. Apology to the sellers!

Great acting all around but very weak and unrealistic storyline. I highly doubt that the intelligent woman portrayed by Duncan would risk everything by engaging in a sordid sexual liason with the brother of her husband's immediate superior. Come on! And I'm sure the Arch Deacon wouldn't so lightly brush off the knowledge of Anna's adulterous affair with his brother (which occured in his own house). As a clergyman he would surely condemn their actions and offer couseling to help get the family through this destructive episode. The real problem with this movie is precisely that it does not make any moral judgements. Anna's actions are protrayed as being totally pure and justified. The heavies are her overworked and depressed husband and the church ladies who are just trying to help (as church ladies do). In return, Anna gets to have sex with another man. This is moral relativism at its worst. Not worth a repeat viewing.