Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
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| Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont | |
|---|---|
 Original poster |
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| Directed by | Dan Ireland |
| Produced by | Lee Caplain Carl-Jan Colpaert Zachary Matz |
| Written by | Ruth Sacks Elizabeth Taylor |
| Starring | Joan Plowright Rupert Friend Anna Massey Robert Lang Zoe Tapper |
| Release date(s) |  2005 2006 |
| Running time | 108 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a 2005 comedy drama film made by Claremont Films and distributed by Picture Entertainment Corporation. It was directed by Dan Ireland and produced by Lee Caplin, Carl Colpaert and Zachary Matz from a screenplay by Ruth Sacks, based on the novel by Elizabeth Taylor.
The film stars Joan Plowright and Rupert Friend, with Zoe Tapper, Anna Massey, Robert Lang, Marcia Warren, Georgina Hale, Millicent Martin, Michael Culkin and Anna Carteret.
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[edit] Plot
All but abandoned by her family in a London retirement hotel, Mrs. Palfrey (Joan Plowright) strikes up a curious friendship with a young writer, Ludovic Meyer (Rupert Friend). Fate brings them together after she has an accident outside his basement flat. The two newly found friends discover they have a lot more in common with each other then they do with other people their own age. Ludovic inadvertently leads Mrs. Palfrey through her past; Mrs. Palfrey inadvertently leads Ludovic to his future.
[edit] Interpretation of Anna Massey's role
There is a seeming poetic connection, perhaps unintentional, between the elderly woman played by Anna Massey and the character she played 35 years earlier in Frenzy. In the 1972 movie she plays Babs, a very attractive young woman with colorful Cockney lower-class speech mannerisms. She is the leading lady yet is abruptly murdered by a serial killer halfway through the film. In Mrs. Palfrey she plays a cantankerous yet sharp elderly woman who assumes an upper-class manner at the decidedly downmarket hotel. She suddenly collapses in the dining room and talks kindly to Mrs. Palfrey, speaking poetically and meditatively about life and death. Massey's role is a side character, yet her death at hospital profoundly affects the mood of the film. The elderly woman seems to be a concept of how Babs might have turned out had she survived.
[edit] Book
The 2005 film is based on the 1971 novel also entitled Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont which was written by Elizabeth Taylor, the novelist.
