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Dance with a Stranger | Year: 1985 Directed: - Mike Newell Actors/Actresses: - Miranda Richardson - Rupert Everett Some dance to remember. Before Brit director Mike Newell became famous for rom-coms starring Hugh Grant, he directed this intense little masterpiece called *Dance with a Stranger*, based on the true-life story of the Last Woman Hanged in England, Ruth Ellis. Firstly, one is shocked to discover that they were still HANGING people in England 50 years ago! -- in the progressive United States, we had moved on to electric chairs and other inventive methods for dispatching our undesirables. Onward and upward! At any rate, this film is an engrossing experience, with dynamite acting from the British Meryl Streep, Miranda Richardson. (Another shocking thing to consider is that this was her first starring role in the movies! She carries herself like a 20-year screen veteran, here.) A very young Rupert Everett acquits himself well as the lover that Ellis eventually guns down. He plays the part with a curious mixture of viciousness and sleepiness. And Ian Holm finds himself in the type of role he was born to play; that is, the repressed, lip-gnawing little man on the sidelines. His character is a torch-carrying friend of Ellis, as equally obsessed with her as she is with the Everett character. (The Everett character is equally obsessed with himself.) There's some social commentary here, if one cares to search for it: it's a feminist saga by its very nature, in which the heroine serves as either a) a repository for Everett's "jam", or b) a punching bag . . . and sometimes as a combination of the two. As you might imagine, Ellis finally gets her fill of this treatment, but don't expect a feel-good, you-go-girl speech as a side-dish for the vengeful main course. This is a woman in living damnation. She's not Susan Sarandon with an accent. There's also a nod toward the caste system in post-war Britain. Ruth Ellis was little better than a hooker, one of those "very friendly" bar-maids who indifferently sings torch songs and keeps the gentlemen company. The Everett character, despite his moonlighting as a race-car driver, came from a family whose home in the country resembled Blenheim Palace. And Everett's comfortably bourgeois friends can muster only contempt for this woman, who -- to them -- seems no better than a tarty and shrill Marilyn Monroe look-alike. Yah yah yah, the social commentary is there, all right; but the movie isn't terribly interested in it. You're better off just watching Richardson portray this woman whose life spirals vertiginously out of control. One senses that she has been waiting all along for a chance to self-destruct: it's not an easy life, coming home to your young son reeking of gin and cigarette smoke. As she slowly but surely turns into a masochistic, lust-soaked monster, pulling down three different people (including her own son) into the abyss right along with her, we can only watch with appalled fascination. I highly recommend this ice-cold film. DEATH AT THE TOP. A WORTHY sister to Susan Hayward's "I Want to Live" both based on fact, this scorching look at 'fatal attraction' across the Class line will stay with you for a long long time. Depressing? Of course! MIRANDA RICHARDSON as the much abused real life Ruth Ellis glistens in the sultry expose of 'Life Reaching for the Top' - you just cannot take your eyes off this woman as she battles through this hellish liason with the upper-class David [another brilliant turn by Rupert Everett]. One almost applauds when she is driven to the inevitable conclusion of the affair, but it gets even worse ..... Yes, it's a shocking ride though this mangled life. This IS the versatile and highly gifted Ms. Richardson's movie. Other viewings? "Tom and Viv", "Enchanted April", "Damage". Flawlessly Cast And Expertly Directed This a rivoting story, made all the more incredible given the fact that it is based on the true-life events surrounding the life of Ruth Ellis, the last women to be hanged in the UK. The casting of Miranda Richardson as the love obsessed, call girl in a seedy London hostess club is inspiried to say the least. The intensity of her character in all its frailty and flaws is meticulously portrayed by Richardson. As she endures disappointment and humiliation at the hands of her young lover, David Blakley, (Mike Newell) her obsessive love grows to a heated frenzy, as she is compelled to distroy the object of her obsession. Rubert Everett deserves kudos for his flawless recreation of the seedy London night-life as seen through the eyes of the denizens of the hostesss club. The overall effect I felt in watching Dance With Stranger was like unwittingly being pulled into a strange and troubling atmosphere...Almost like being in a place where the undercurrent of danger and intrigue have a grasp on you and you can not let go. I've seen this move four times and find it fresh and rewarding with each repeated viewing. Buy Dance With A Stranger at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Dance With A Stranger Search with the Priority Search Engine on Dance With A Stranger This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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