The French Lieutenant's Woman

Karel Reisz, UK, 1981, 124 minutes

Nothing like the book, but who cares? Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons play an American actress and her co-star who are playing the parts of Sarah Woodruff and Charles Smithison in their film version of The French Lieutetant's Woman. Two (four?) magnificent central performances and the ingenious film-within-a-film structure add poignancy and ambiguity to the parallel love-stories at the heart of the movie. A very subtle play between period accuracy and transparent performance is brought off perfectly.

Review by Allan Smithee
Taken from EUFS Programme 1993-94

Based on John Fowles's unfilmable novel, Karel Reisz doesn't (in fact couldn't) remain faithful to the text, and the changes he has made are all unfortunately detrimental to the whole; but the film is not the travesty some have made it out to be. Many directors expressed an interest in making The French Lieutenant's Woman(Sydney Pollack, Fred Zinnemann, Lindsay Anderson), but they would not have been working from a Harold Pinter script.

In 1867 Charles Smithson (Jeremy Irons), an amateur scientist and a gentleman announces his engagement to Ernestina, while unknown to him Sarah Woodruff (Meryl Streep) keeps her vigil on the Cobb at Lyme Regis.

Meanwhile, on the set of the film, Mike (Irons) the actor playing Charles, is having an affair with Anna (Streep), the actress playing Sarah. Charles becomes infatuated with Sarah to the point of breaking off his engagement, while Anna, embansased that the entire film crew knows she's having an affair, avoids Mike.

Reisz remains detached from his characters and this causes the Victorian story to alienate the viewer; the viewer is also forced to identify with both pairs of characters - not what the book intended. Nevertheless Irons (then known only as a stage actor) and Streep both give fine performances, and the film is beautifully lit by cinematographer Freddie Francis.

Review by Stephen Cox
Taken from EUFS Programme 1995-96