In 1958 postwar Britain, Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, receives a letter from the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, now Mrs. Benn. Their past employer, the Earl of Darlington, has died a broken man, his reputation destroyed by his pre–Second World War support of Nazi Germany, and his stately country house has been sold to retired US Congressman Jack Lewis. Allowed to borrow the Daimler, Stevens sets off for the West Country to see Miss Kenton for the first time in decades.
In the 1930s, Kenton arrives at Darlington Hall, where the ever-efficient but deeply repressed Stevens derives his entire identity from his profession. He butts heads with the warmer, strong-willed Kenton, particularly when he refuses to acknowledge that his father, now an under-butler, is no longer able to perform his duties.
Displaying total professionalism, Stevens carries on as his father lies dying during Darlington's conference of like-minded fascist-sympathising British and European aristocrats. Also in attendance is U.S. Congressman Lewis, who admonishes the "gentleman politicians" as meddling amateurs, advising that "Europe has become the arena of Realpolitik" and warning of impending disaster.
Exposed to Nazi racial laws, Darlington gets Stevens to dismiss two newly hired refugee German-Jewish maids. Kenton threatens to resign but has nowhere to go, and a regretful Darlington is later unable to rehire the maids. At another conference, Stevens is unable to answer an aristocratic guest's questions on global trade and politics, which the aristocrat claims demonstrates the lower classes' ignorance and inability to govern themselves.
Relations thaw between Stevens and Kenton, and she clearly shows her feelings for him. But the outwardly detached Stevens remains dedicated solely to his role as butler. She catches him reading a romance novel, which he explains is to improve his vocabulary, asking her not to invade his privacy again.
Lord Darlington's godson, journalist Reginald Cardinal, arrives on the day of a secret meeting at Darlington Hall between the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, and the German ambassador, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Appalled by his godfather's role in seeking appeasement for Nazi Germany, Cardinal tells Stevens that Darlington is being used by the Nazis, but Stevens feels it is not his place to judge his employer.
Kenton forms a relationship with former co-worker Tom Benn and accepts his proposal of marriage. She informs Stevens as an ultimatum, but he will not admit his feelings and only offers his congratulations. Finding her crying, his only response is to call her attention to a neglected domestic task, and she leaves Darlington Hall before the start of the Second World War.
En route to meeting Kenton in 1958, Stevens is mistaken for a gentleman at a pub. Doctor Carlisle, a local GP, helps him refuel the Daimler, deduces that he is actually a manservant, and asks his thoughts about Lord Darlington's actions. Initially denying having even met him, Stevens later admits to having served and respected him, noting that Darlington later confessed that his Nazi sympathies had been misguided and naive.
Stevens tells Carlisle that, although Lord Darlington was unable to correct his error, he is attempting to correct his own. He meets Kenton, who has separated from her husband and is staying at a boarding house on the coast. She and Stevens discuss how Lord Darlington died from a broken heart after suing a newspaper for libel, losing the suit and his reputation. Stevens mentions that Cardinal was killed in the war.
Kenton declines to resume her position at Darlington Hall, wishing to remain near her pregnant daughter and, despite years of unhappiness, thinking about going back to her husband. Stevens supposes they may never meet again, and they part fondly but are both quietly upset, with Miss Kenton visibly tearful as her bus pulls away.
Stevens returns to Darlington Hall, where Lewis asks if he remembers what he had said at the conference in the 30s. Stevens replies that he was too busy serving to listen to the speeches. A pigeon flies into the fireplace from the chimney, and Lewis catches and sets it free. Stevens watches the bird as it flies away, leaving Darlington Hall far behind.
A film adaptation of the novel was originally planned to be directed by Mike Nichols from a script by Harold Pinter. Meryl Streep’s then-agent, Sam Cohn, and the director sold her on the plum role of Miss Kenton. Both Streep and Jeremy Irons read for Nichols, but the filmmaker opted not to cast them in roles later filled by Emma Thompson (ten years Meryl’s junior) and Anthony Hopkins (twenty years Emma’s senior). Cohn, who was also Nichols’s agent, didn’t make it clear to Meryl that she was no longer a candidate for Miss Kenton, she only learned later, after reading about Thompson’s casting. Shortly thereafter Streep made headlines after she fired her long time, east coast agent, signing with rival agent Bryan Lourd at the powerful Creative Artists Agency.[4] Some of Pinter's script was used in the film, but, while Pinter was paid for his work, he asked to have his name removed from the credits, in keeping with his contract.[a] Christopher C. Hudgins observes: "During our 1994 interview, Pinter told [Steven H.] Gale and me that he had learned his lesson after the revisions imposed on his script for The Handmaid's Tale, which he has decided not to publish. When his script for The Remains of the Day was radically revised by the James Ivory–Ismail Merchant partnership, he refused to allow his name to be listed in the credits" (125).[b][c][d] Though no longer the director, Nichols remained associated with the project as one of its producers.
A number of English country estates were used as locations for the film, partly owing to the persuasive power of Ismail Merchant, who was able to cajole permission for the production to borrow houses not normally open to the public. Among them were Dyrham Park for the exterior of the house and the driveway, Powderham Castle (staircase, hall, music room, bedroom; used for the aqua-turquoise stairway scenes), Corsham Court (library and dining room) and Badminton House (servants' quarters, conservatory, entrance hall). Luciana Arrighi, the production designer, scouted most of these locations. Scenes were also shot in Weston-super-Mare, which stood in for Clevedon. The pub where Mr Stevens stays is the Hop Pole in Limpley Stoke; the shop featured is also in Limpley Stoke. The pub where Miss Kenton and Mr Benn meet is The George Inn in Norton St Philip.
Characters
The character of Sir Geoffrey Wren is based loosely on that of Sir Oswald Mosley, a British fascist active in the 1930s.[5] Wren is depicted as a strict vegetarian, like Hitler.[6]The 3rd Viscount Halifax (later created the 1st Earl of Halifax) also appears in the film. Lord Darlington tells Stevens that Halifax approved of the polish on the silver, and Lord Halifax himself later appears when Darlington meets secretly with the German Ambassador and his aides at night. Halifax was the chief architect of the British policy of appeasement from 1937 to 1939.[7] Coincidentally, Halifax was born at Powderham Castle (above). The character of Congressman Jack Lewis in the film is a composite of two separate American characters in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel: Senator Lewis (who attends the pre-WW2 conference in Darlington Hall), and Mr Farraday, who succeeds Lord Darlington as master of Darlington Hall.
It was the opening night film at the London Film Festival on 4 November 1993 and opened in 94 theatres in the United States on 5 November.[9][10]
Reception
Critical reception
The film has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 49 reviews, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The consensus states: "Smart, elegant, and blessed with impeccable performances from Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, The Remains of the Day is a Merchant–Ivory classic."[11] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 to critics' reviews, it received a score of 86 based on 12 reviews.[12] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[13]
Roger Ebert particularly praised the film, calling it "a subtle, thoughtful movie."[14] In his favorable review for The Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "Put Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson and James Fox together and you can expect sterling performances."[15]Vincent Canby of The New York Times said, in another favorable review, "Here's a film for adults. It's also about time to recognize that Mr. Ivory is one of our finest directors, something that critics tend to overlook because most of his films have been literary adaptations."[16]
The film was named one of the best films of 1993 by over 50 critics, making it the fifth-most-acclaimed film of 1993.[17]
Box office
The film grossed $23 million in the United States and Canada.[2] In the United Kingdom, it grossed £4.5 million.[18] Worldwide, it grossed $63.9 million.[2]
^
"In November 1994, Pinter wrote, "I've just heard that they are bringing another writer into the "Lolita" film. It doesn't surprise me.' ... Pinter's contract contained a clause to the effect that the film company could bring in another writer, but that in such a case he could withdraw his name (which is exactly the case with [the film] The Remains of the Day—he had insisted on this clause since the bad experience with revisions made to his Handmaid's Tale script); he has never been given any reason as to why another writer was brought in" (Gale 352).
^
Hudgins adds: "We did not see Pinter's name up in lights when Lyne's Lolita finally made its appearance in 1998. Pinter goes on in the March 13 [1995] letter [to Hudgins] to state that 'I have never been given any reason at all as to why the film company brought in another writer,' again quite similar to the equally ungracious treatment that he received in the Remains of the Day situation" (125).
^Cf. the essay on the film The Remains of the Day published in Gale's collection by Edward T. Jones: "Pinter gave me a copy of his typescript for his screenplay, which he revised 24 January 1991, during an interview that I conducted with him in London about his screenplay in May 1992, part of which appeared in 'Harold Pinter: A Conversation' in Literature/Film Quarterly, XXI (1993): 2–9. In that interview, Pinter mentioned that Ishiguro liked the screenplay that he had scripted for a proposed film version of the novel. All references to Pinter's screenplay in the text [of Jones's essay] are to this unpublished manuscript" (107n1).
^
In his 2008 essay published in The Pinter Review, Hudgins discusses further details about why "Pinter elected not to publish three of his completed film scripts, The Handmaid's Tale, The Remains of the Day and Lolita," all of which Hudgins considers "masterful film scripts" of "demonstrable superiority to the shooting scripts that were eventually used to make the films"; fortunately ("We can thank our various lucky stars"), he says, "these Pinter film scripts are now available not only in private collections but also in the Pinter Archive at the British Library"; in this essay, which he first presented as a paper at the 10th Europe Theatre Prize symposium, Pinter: Passion, Poetry, Politics, held in Turin, Italy, in March 2006, Hudgins "examin[es] all three unpublished film scripts in conjunction with one another" and "provides several interesting insights about Pinter's adaptation process" (132).
^Carlson, Erin (24 September 2019). Queen Meryl: The Iconic Roles, Heroic Deeds, and Legendary Life of Meryl Streep. New York, NY: Hachette Books. pp. 259–260. ISBN9780316485289.
Gale, Steven H. Sharp Cut: Harold Pinter's Screenplays and the Artistic Process. Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
Gale, Steven H., ed. The Films of Harold Pinter. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001.
Hudgins, Christopher C. "Harold Pinter's Lolita: 'My Sin, My Soul'." In The Films of Harold Pinter. Steven H. Gale, ed. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2001.
Hudgins, Christopher C. "Three Unpublished Harold Pinter Filmscripts: The Handmaid's Tale, The Remains of the Day, Lolita." The Pinter Review: Nobel Prize / Europe Theatre Prize Volume: 2005 – 2008. Francis Gillen with Steven H. Gale, eds. Tampa, Fla.: University of Tampa Press, 2008.
