Truly, Madly, Deeply
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| Truly, Madly, Deeply | |
|---|---|
 Reproduction movie poster for Truly, Madly, Deeply |
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| Directed by | Anthony Minghella |
| Produced by | Robert Cooper |
| Written by | Anthony Minghella |
| Starring | Juliet Stevenson Alan Rickman |
| Music by | Barrington Pheloung |
| Cinematography | Remi Adefarasin |
| Editing by | John Stothart |
| Distributed by | Samuel Goldwyn |
| Release date(s) | May 3, 1991 |
| Running time | 106 min. |
| Country | UK |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
- This article is about the film Truly, Madly, Deeply. For the song see Truly Madly Deeply.
Truly, Madly, Deeply is a British romance film, made in 1991 for the BBC's Screen One series. It was written and directed by Anthony Minghella and stars Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman, both up-and-coming stars at the time of its making. Minghella has said he wrote the script specifically as "a vehicle for [Stevenson] to express all her talents. She plays piano, likes dancing and has a quirky side to her which she usually can't express in the classical parts she is asked for" ([1]).
The title comes from a verbal word game played by the main characters in which they challenge each other to take turns repeating and adding to a series of adverbs describing how much they love each other.
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[edit] Plot
Nina, an interpreter, is beside herself with grief at the recent death of her boyfriend, Jamie, a cellist. When it appears that she is no longer able to cope with life, Jamie reappears as a "ghost" and the couple - in Nina's imagination anyway - are reconciled. Nina is of course ecstatic, but Jamie's behaviour - turning up the central heating to stifling levels, moving furniture around and inviting back "ghost friends" to watch videos- gradually infuriates her, and their relationship deteriorates. Although happy and able to return to a somewhat normal state, Nina's relationship with Jamie is put under strain by his erratic behaviour. She meets Mark (Michael Maloney), a social worker, to whom she is attracted, but she is unwilling to become involved with him because of Jamie's continued presence. However, Nina confronts Jamie, who realises he must leave her to get on with her life. She states that she never wants him to leave, but Jamie says goodbye and allows her to move on start a relationship with Mark.
[edit] Themes and motifs
The main theme is communication. Nina is a professional interpreter, working in a language agency and surrounded by people who often fail to make themselves understood to each other; the ghost of Jamie reveals he has been spending his time learning Spanish, and sometimes speaks to her in a "terrible" accent; at one point Nina goes to Mark's workplace and communicates with him with hand gestures through a window; Jamie and Nina's relationship ultimately suffers because they fail to communicate with each other.
A repeated visual motif is clouds - when Nina and a language student go out walking they talk about clouds; Jamie refers to a metal cloud mobile he gave Nina; Jamie and Nina play a game in which they interpret cloud shapes as pictures; and the clouds themselves refer to heaven and Jamie's death.
The characters also have social and political concerns. Nina first meets Mark in a cafe where a waiter, an illegal immigrant, explains to her he is being underpaid by his boss, and she intervenes in the argument (and translates for the waiter). Jamie also says: "That capacity to love that people have - what happens to it? I blame the government." When Nina asks him what he means he says, "I hate the bastards" and claims he still attends Party meetings, despite being dead.
Stylistically the film makes several nods to magic realism and metaphor, in the sense that some of the scenes depicted are not actually happening except in the characters' imaginations. This is principally demonstrated through Jamie "returning" to live with Nina. Elsewhere, action is depicted by showing a subjective and imaginative version of the events rather than by describing them in mundane detail, such as the cafe scene in which Mark intervenes in the dispute and resolves the argument by appearing to perform a magic trick in which, à propos of nothing, he makes a dove fly out of his coat sleeve.
[edit] Reception
The film was very successful, winning several awards including a BAFTA for best original screenplay. Its combination of serious themes with comic scenes and music and strong performances from the actors made it extremely popular. However, some critics were irritated by the overwhelming "middle-classness" of the characters
[edit] Comparison with Ghost
Although often referred to as the British Ghost (most famously by Ian Hislop, who described it as "Ghost for people who can do crosswords"), its plot really bears no resemblance to that of the Hollywood movie.
[edit] Awards
[edit] Won
- Australian Film Institute's Best Foreign Film Award
- BAFTA's award for best original screenplay
- Rickman and Stevenson won Best Actor and Best Actress awards from the Evening Standard British Film Awards
[edit] Nominated
- Rickman and Stevenson were nominated for best actor and actress by BAFTA
