Mrs. Henderson Presents Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)December 25th, 2005
Mrs. Henderson Presents
reviewed by Sam Osborn www.samseescinema.com
rating: 2.5 out of 4
Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Will Young, Kelly Reilly Screenplay: Martin Sherman
MPAA Classification: R (nudity and brief language)
Each year, when the Top Ten lists and Award ceremonies start revving up to full swing, there's an annual critical darling that leaves me cold. This year's exhibit is Mrs. Henderson Presents. Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins are reeling in piles of nominations, Stephen Frears is being doted as a potential Best Director nominee, and the film is earning four star raves from many of the top print critics. But walking out of the screening, even after a Q&A with Frears (which generally helps appreciation of a film), I was left wondering why people are so lustily endeared to this film. To be frank (the critic's duty, of course), I found the film standing on slightly the right side of mediocre. It's not particularly bad, but Mrs. Henderson Presents is a film that's been left on the burner just long enough to be heated to lukewarm temperature. Even the gaggles of naked women--the selling point of the story's theatre--couldn't pique my interest, a great feat indeed. It reminded me almost of a sports film; where there are certain steps a team must take to reach the championship game. We care mildly for each player and for the coaches, but are deafened in our affection by the empty steps and progressions the story takes, the film eventually leaving us as satisfied as does a primetime television sitcom.
The film surrounds a revolutionary theatre's deliverance through the tumultuous times of World War II London. Mrs. Henderson's (Judi Dench) husband has recently passed away, leaving her with an impressive sum of savings and absolutely nothing to do with it. So, on a whim, Mrs. Henderson purchases an all but demolished auditorium to keep herself busy. But knowing near to nothing about the bombastic world of theatre performance, she hires the out-of-work manager Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to take the reigns of creative control. They're first project innovates London theatre by not only running one show per day, but running shows repeatedly throughout the day. But soon the rest of London catches on to this smart theme and Mrs. Henderson's theatre is back to near-bankruptcy. Their next project, seeming as though another fanciful whim of the frightfully zealous Henderson, centers on shameless nudity; intelligent, tasteful plays that feature, quite artistically, the natural form of a woman's body. With supreme flattery Mrs. Henderson achieves approval for the project and the shows are instant hits.
>From there, however, screenwriter Martin Sherman's narrative runs into walls. There are, after all, only so many problems a theatre can run into that are suitably entertaining enough for an engaging film. There must be strife externally with the government, strife internally with the theatre's main actress, strife between the managers, strife with the world and the war, and strife contrived anywhere else Sherman can invent it. After the initially delightful reaction to their nudist shows, Frears' film lends itself heavily to formula contrivances to forward its plot.
But as I've repeated dozens of times already this year, formula is not a film's problem. Formula is fine; it's what fuels nine out of ten films released. What isn't fine, however, is when a film's formula is all it relies upon. Characters must embellish the formula to take what would normally stand as a plot contrivance and build it into a deep-rooted character development.
With Mrs. Henderson Presents, the characters are merely archetypes of characters we've seen many times before. Judi Dench is gravitating nominations for her Mrs. Henderson, despite her character being indelibly one-dimensional. Just because an elderly woman can squirt a few tears in front of a grave does not justify a Best Actress nomination. The same goes for Bob Hoskins. As entertaining as his Van Damm is, he simply shouts and smears on a fatherly countenance. The characters, quite frankly, are flat. They have their spectacularly delightful moments, sure, but none of them change or evolve from the beginning of the film to the end.
All this negativity, however, is mostly a defensive reaction to Mrs. Henderson Presents' droves of rave reviews. In actuality, the film is mostly enjoyable. Its dance and musical numbers often show heart and great flair in costume design, the art direction and 1940's imagining of London is often beautiful and moody, and Stephen Frears, as usual, offers superb direction with the film's pacing and overarching tone. But the film does little more than gently excite us. Mrs. Henderson Presents is a potato chip amongst the heaping feasts of Award Season film releases.
-www.samseescinema.com
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