Stephen Frears Presents

Mrs. Henderson Presents, the newest film from chameleon director Stephen Frears, suffers from a massive tonal confusion. It opens on a dry, awkward funeral sequence that plays as if it wants to be a little funny, but isn’t at all, proceeds to tapdance its way into a mostly-amusing, high-rhetorical slugfest between two great titans of acting, and then ducks into a thicket of dramatic complications that seem to sprout entirely out of nowhere. Despite some great performances from its two endlessly watchable leads, Bob Hoskins and Dame Judy Dench, the whole thing ends up a confusing muddle. As I recall, the first comment I made about the film as I left the theater was, “What the hell was that?”

Frears, who has previously directed such varied fare as High Fidelity and Dirty Pretty Things, here attempts to go the Coen brothers route, peddling sly, silly period wit with some fine actors and a tinge of absurdity. The picture is set in London’s Windmill Theater as it struggles to gain an audience in the moments preceding and immediately following the start of World War II. The second part concerns its further struggle to remain open—after rising to popularity with its vaguely prurient nude revues—in the face of regular bombing. Frears gives it a theatrical, low-budget touch, all rich hues and frilly costumes with lots of strident line readings and grandiose blocking. And while the film is generally pleasant to look at, Frears’ direction seems lost; he misses a number of comic beats, struggles occasionally to find rhythm, and has absolutely no sense of pacing.

My viewing companion claimed the movie was 40 minutes too long, which is fairly accurate, I suppose, if one’s desire is to more regularly pay $9.75 to see hour long movies on absurdly tiny, badly maintained screens at the DuPont Circle theater. The problem, I think, wasn’t quite so much that it was too long as it was that the filmmakers had two entirely different movies in mind which they smashed together into an unpleasant combination. Like cottage cheese mixed with peanut butter, it wasn’t that the mix was particularly poisonous as it was unexpected and, subsequently, less than delicious.

Of course, both of those ingredients can be quite tasty, at least I think, on their own, and the two sections of Henderson both have some merit. The first, and by far the best section, is a sublime, witty farce on burlesque theater. Dench, as a rich, snooty and recently widowed British aristocrat, and Hoskins, as a demanding, boisterous and somewhat short-tempered theater manager, make a delightful pair, and the script gives them each a fully stocked ammunitions closet of cleverly barbed banter with which to berate each other. The allegedly naughty bits, in which Dench decides her theater will feature nude girls, are anything but indecent. In fact, they're almost Puritanical in their tastefulness, and their silliness keep the first section zippy and zany.

But then, around the one hour mark, the film goes backstage for a quick change, only to emerge wearing a funeral veil. The light-footed pacing and snappy banter is gone, replaced by a string of totally unexpected downers. I, of course, have little problem with depressing material, but it’s generally appropriate to give your audience some warning. Perhaps a title card: Warning. Heavy drama to ensue. Alas, we get no such thing here.

Henderson delivers an hour of solid, if not exactly exemplary, chuckles, and then trots out the sackcloth and ashes for some teary nonsense that, even if it was particularly well done (it’s not), just doesn’t register because it flies in completely out of nowhere.

From this, a number of questions arise. What was Frears thinking? Why was this film—tame, unformulaic and lacking in young, nubile stars—made? What on Earth possessed so many critics to give it quite high marks? Did Bob Hoskins and Judy Dench have any idea what they were getting into? Is Rod Dreher really serious about this inexplicable Crunchy Con thing? These are important questions, people.

As for my initial query (“What the hell was that,” for those of you too lazy to glance up a few paragraphs), well; I still don’t know.