The Serpent's Kiss

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The Serpent's Kiss
Directed by	Philippe Rousselot
Written by	Tim Rose Price
Starring	Ewan McGregor Greta Scacchi Pete Postlethwaite
Release date(s)	1997
Running time	104 min.
Country	U.K. / France / Germany
Language	English
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The Serpent's Kiss (Fr. Le Baiser du serpent, Ge. Der Schlangenkuss) is a 1997 film directed by Philippe Rousselot. It is a story about a Dutch garden architect named Meneer Chrome (Ewan McGregor) who has been hired by a wealthy metalworker (Pete Postlethwaite) to create an extravagant garden. The film also stars Greta Scacchi and Richard E. Grant.

[edit] Plot Summary

Thomas Smithers (Postlethwaite), who has made his fortune in metalwork, hires Meneer Chrome (McGregor), a famous garden designer, to create the most extravagant garden imaginable out of his wild property. However, Chrome has already been employed by Fitzmaurice (Grant), the cousin of Smithers' wife Juliana (Scacchi), for the purpose of bankrupting Smithers. Fitzmaurice's purpose in this is to take back Juliana as his lover, but she becomes attracted to Chrome, who is falling in love with Anne, the Smithers' mysterious daughter. Anne, however, is contemptuous of Chrome (and, indeed, of everyone she meets, filtering them and everything else around her through the poems of Andrew Marvell); her parents subject her to numerous "treatments," thinking her mentally unstable and wishing to cure her. These treatments cause Chrome to pity her, outbursting to the Puritan doctor at one point, "You're sick, she's not! Heal yourself!"

As the garden grows increasingly more complex and Smithers approaches bankruptcy, Fitzmaurice realizes that Chrome's affection for Anne is making him a liability; first he threatens to reveal Chrome's true identity to Smithers, then he plots to kill him. Fitzmaurice's plan backfires, however, and he falls victim to his own poison. Juliana abandons her adulterous intentions, which her husband remains unaware of, and turns to support Smithers, who is bankrupt from his garden project obsession. Anne and Chrome, revealed to be Chrome's assistant, go to the sea together where Anne throws away her book of poetry.