Remains of the Day, a Movie Review

Well, we are required to write about five cultural events throughout the semester and for this first one that I will be writing on is a review about the movie called Remains of the Day by director James Ivory starting Anthony Hopkins as James Stevens the Butler and Emma Thompson as Mary Kenton.

The movie is practically about the life of James Stevens who is a butler working for a wealthy English Lord and falls in love with his co-butler miss Mary Kenton. The movie takes place in England after WWI after the death of the previous owner of the mansion Lord Darlington. Consistently, Stevens reads the letters that Mary Kenton writes to him as he travels to his vacation destination. Stevens then recruits Mary Kenton to help him care for the mansion even though he likes Misses Kenton a lot but tries to deny the fact that he does. However, he has a high cultural value for being a butler and seems to shun is emotions for Misses Kenton. He seems to be working toward a vision of being a “great butler”. The odd part is that even though his father works with him, they don’t call either other by their martial status. Instead they call each other Mr. Steven’s, almost as if there were no relation between the father and son.

As the movie progresses Steven’s father becomes ill. As a result his father forgets to put away the dustpan while dusting the stairs, which Stevens becomes angry about and blames the other house keepers. Another incident that anger him was when Miss Stevens ask for him to see the “Chinaman” which she was referring to an old Chinese statue that Mr. Steven’s father had miss placed.

During a meeting between what seems like politicians or noblemen discussing about Germany and the Nazis, Steven’s father fainted while working in the court yard. He confronts his father and asked him to reduce to amount of weight he carries and work done around the mansion. During what seems like big political meeting, Steven’s father became very ill and was interrupted during his duty to see his dying father. It was only this time that I found, he actually called his father, father. The fallowing dinner his father requested to see him before he passed away. However, Steven’s being the working machine he is says that his father would rather have him serve the guest and not attend to his dying father’s side. After the dinner he seems to have greatly regretted his decision.

After the death of Steven’s father, Miss Kenton tries to display her love for Stevens, but ignores her. Frustrated and sad she left the mansion. After Miss Kenton left Steven’s realized what he had done wrong. He fallowed Miss Kenton, now Mrs. Ben, to Weymouth. He soon found out that his lord was found to be a Nazi sympathizer and was disgraced for working with him. During his drive to Weymouth his car ran out of gasoline and he walked to the nearest town where he meet a gentlemen and for the first time was tread like an equal.

Reading the letter Mrs. Ben wrote to him she tells him she is separated from her husband. He wants to rehire her to work again. Mrs. Ben denies him of his opportunity and he returns to the mansion where it ends.

The acting in this movie, in my opinion, is great. Probably one of the best performance Anthony Hopkins gave in his career. However, my first time seeing the movie, it was hard to understand some of his decisions he made. Like how he didn’t go to his father’s side when his father requested him and how he was having such a hard time to tell Miss Kenton how he felt. But after watching the movie again, or some sections of it, it became clear that Stevens had this strict rule of professionalism. He wanted to be a great butler. A world class butler, maybe. He was obsesses with it. Well, at the end I think he deserved what he got. He threw is whole life away to his professionalism. He lived his life believing in his professionalism. And when he finally realized what he truly wanted, it was too late for him. So sad for Mr. Stevens.