Plenty (1985) User Reviews (42)

"There will be days and days and days like this."

[JamesHitchcock · 5/10 · 22 April 2008]

Meryl Streep is undoubtedly one of the greatest screen actresses of all time, but I sometimes wish that her talent for acting were matched by a talent for picking the right film. Although she never gives a bad performance, and rarely a mediocre one, she has found herself appearing in some mediocre films. Even in the eighties, probably the best decade of her career, she tended to alternate between the excellent ("The French Lieutenant's Woman", "Sophie's Choice", "Silkwood", "Out of Africa", "A Cry in the Dark") and the not-so-good. A romance between Streep and Robert de Niro, for example, might have seemed like an excellent premise for a film, but "Falling in Love" turned out a great disappointment.

"Plenty" is another of Streep's less successful ventures from this decade, although this British art-house movie did at least show more ambition than the typically bland Hollywood fare of "Falling in Love". The film is based on a stage play by the left-wing playwright David Hare. Streep plays the main character, Susan Traherne, an upper-class young Englishwoman who during World War II works as an underground courier in Nazi-occupied France. The work is dangerous, but the idealistic Susan, who is firmly convinced that she is fighting for a better world, finds it exhilarating. She has a passionate affair with Lazar, a British agent. There is a key scene, set at the end of the war, where Susan stands on a hilltop in beautiful French countryside, bathed in golden sunlight, and says, "There will be days and days and days like this." That scene on the hill is a flashback- in fact it is the last shot in the film. By this time we have already learnt that the post-war years have turned out to be far less rosy than Susan imagined. Nothing in her peacetime life can ever be as thrilling, or as fulfilling, as her wartime experiences. Her jobs as a shipping clerk and in advertising provide her with no satisfaction. She has an unsatisfactory affair with the working-class Mick and a disastrous marriage to Raymond Brock, a career diplomat. She tries to rekindle her affair with Lazar, but cannot recapture their wartime passion. She always lives under the shadow of depression and mental instability.

David Hare wrote about the film that it was called "Plenty" because it depicts the way in which "the years of austerity in the late forties are followed by the years of plenty in the mid-fifties, and it's a recurring feeling in the film that it is money that rots people". This could have been an interesting theme- the contrast between the idealism of the forties and the complacent materialism of the fifties- but it never really comes through in the film. Indeed, some commentators have seen quite the opposite message in the film, which they interpret as showing how wartime hopes of greater material prosperity for the working class were to be disappointed in the fifties. This message, however, does not really come through either. There is not much in the film about either middle-class wealth or working-class poverty; much of the film's most overtly political content concerns the Suez crisis of 1956.

There are attempts to draw analogies between the personal lives of the characters and the wider society of which they are a part, but the film is really about Susan and her fragile personality. She comes across as an incredibly selfish and self-centred individual; what worries her is not the state of British society or the lot of the working class but rather the fact that her own life is not as exciting as it once was. The collapse of her marriage to Raymond results from the fact that it is her increasingly eccentric behaviour which has damaged his career and her refusal to live abroad which has prevented him from being offered foreign postings.

There are some good acting performances in the film, but they mostly come in cameo roles, such as John Gielgud as Sir Leonard Darwin, the Foreign Office mandarin who resigns over Suez, or Ian McKellen as Sir Andrew Charleson, the urbane and supercilious diplomat who succeeds Darwin as Raymond's superior, or Tracey Ullman as Susan's friend Alice. Streep's own performance is technically good- her English accent is flawless, even better than in "The French Lieutenant's Woman"- but she never succeeds in arousing our sympathy for her self-obsessed character. "Plenty" could have been an interesting study of British society during and after World War II, but ends up as a cold, uninvolving character study of a neurotic woman. 5/10

Ironic Title.

[AaronCapenBanner · 5/10 · 23 September 2013]

Meryl Streep plays Susan Traherne, a former resistance fighter in World War II who struggles to find meaning in her life decades after the war is over. She is unhappily married to a man(Charles Dance) who isn't ambitious enough for her, and he finds himself increasingly enraged by her self-destructive ways and interference in his professional life. Susan has a friend(played by Tracy Ullman) that she is close to, but who also has her own problems. Susan has an affair with another man(played by Sting), but finds herself thinking about her former lover from the war(played by Sam Neil) whom she does meet again, but it doesn't go the way she had hoped...

Well-acted but incredibly dreary film has some beautifully directed (by Fred Shepisi) sequences, and Meryl is as attractive as ever, but her character wears out her welcome after a while, and relentlessly cynical film becomes tiresome.

A waste of a good evening

[MusicalMagpie · 5/10 · 17 November 2007]

The kid was at a sleepover. Ahhh....for once we could watch a grownup movie. What about that Meryl Streep film I picked up the other day, the one with the glowing accolades on the cover: "one of the greatest performances of her career"... "brilliant"..."fiercely intelligent"... sounds like another "Sophie's Choice"..... but no. It turned out to be a waste of a good evening.

After reading many 10-star reviews of this film, I can't help wondering why my husband and I got absolutely nothing out of watching it. It did not engage us in the least.

The movie is obviously adapted from a stage play, as the scenes are static and episodic. The transition from one scene to the next is often unclear, as the story jumps ahead in time and moves all over the map. One minute Susan is sharing a cramped flat with her girlfriend; the next minute she is in a comfortable apartment. Now she is dating diplomat Charles Dance. Now she is trying to make a baby with a man she despises - but who bears a marked resemblance to her long-lost airman. But wait - now she is married to Charles Dance. When and why did this happen? (this is not explained until much later in the film).

The dinner party scene is awkward and Susan's outbursts (and language) seem out of character. While John Gielgud's performance is delightful (and he has some of the best lines), his relationship with Susan is never really developed - so why is she so upset when he dies?

We are great fans of Meryl Streep, but we were puzzled and disappointed by her performance in this film. It was difficult to understand what she was trying to do with her character. Madwoman? Selfish bitch? Disillusioned idealist? Her extreme swings of mood - from passivity to scenery-chewing - were not believable (I do not buy the "bipolar" theory for a minute); nor was her friendship with Tracy Ullman (whose role vacillated between free spirit and wise woman).

I found myself longing for "Postcards from the Edge" or "Sophie's Choice" or "Death Becomes Her" or even (God help me) the mess she made of Miranda in "The Devil Wears Prada". At least with these roles you knew where she was going.

It has been suggested by several reviewers that the key to liking this film is repeated viewings. Frankly, I am not willing to sacrifice another evening for the experiment.

A post WWII world seen through English eyes

[pdk1 · 11 September 2006]

David Hare's brilliant stage play has been translated beautifully to the screen. The peculiar English trait of natural melancholy radiates throughout this sad exercise of seeing all through the lens of British class consciousness, repression and despair. The color photography, the performances, the stifling framing of the widescreen shots all add to the oppressive beauty of a story about the self-destruction of a preternaturally beautiful woman. Mery Streep has never been better before or since. Hare makes her intellectual acuity a weapon against herself as she sees through all the ghastly pretenses of a corroding Empire. No insight, no beauty of body, no letting go of formality and pretense can save her from herself. Feminism itself is taken to the burning stake as Streep's character thrashes, Hedda Gabbler like, against walls and prohibitions beyond her understanding. Rarely has such condemnation looked so ravishing.

A strange, not immediately accessible film that boasts some strong performances from its cast

[roger-pettit1 · 7/10 · 5 May 2012]

"Plenty" was adapted for the big screen by David Hare from his stage play of the same name. I haven't seen the play. The film is complex. It is also strangely beguiling (primarily due to the riveting performances of its leading stars) but ultimately less than wholly satisfying.

The plot covers a period of twenty years or so after the end of the Second World War. It centres on the life of Susan Traherne (played with subtle brilliance by Meryl Streep), who works in Special Operations in occupied France during the War. While doing so, she has a very brief romantic dalliance with a fellow agent, Lazar (Sam Neill), who parachutes in to assist the resistance against the Nazi occupiers. Their passionate one-night stand (which is all it was) has a deep and lasting impact on Susan, one which essentially haunts her for the rest of her life. A few years after that liaison, Susan meets Raymond Brock (Charles Dance), who works as a junior diplomat in Brussels. He visits her at weekends in post-war London, where she works in a dull administrative job and shares her accommodation with a bohemian girlfriend, Alice (Tracey Ullmann). Desperate to have a child, Susan asks Mick (Sting) to father one with her. Still childless, Susan eventually marries Raymond but her increasingly selfish and neurotic behaviour casts a shadow over his diplomatic career and their marriage.

It's a long time since I have seen a film in which all the performances seem to be so good. Streep, Dance and Ullmann are excellent. And there is a first-rate cameo from John Gielgud, who plays a diplomat who resigns his position because of what he considers to be the betrayal and the immoral behaviour of the British government in response to the Suez crisis of the late 1950s. I say the performances "seem" to be top notch for one very good reason. To be able to judge them accurately, the viewer needs to understand everything that is going on. And I have to confess that I am far from sure that I completely follow exactly what the central message of "Plenty" is. Indeed, the remoteness of the film (in terms of its comprehensibility) is a major weakness. I am not at all sure either that I understand why the film has the title it does. I think what Hare is trying to tell us is that the moral values for which people like Susan fought in the Second World War were eventually corrupted by the materialism (the "plenty"?) and the selfishness that were prevalent in the post-war years. But I am by no means sure that that is the message of the film. I suspect that "Plenty" is one of those movies that yields its meaning gradually and therefore necessitates more than one viewing. (I have seen it only the once.)

There is one other problem with the film, albeit a minor one. Some of the external scenes, particularly those set in London, seem oddly unconvincing. I think this is because they give the impression of being shot inside a studio rather than outdoors. This tends to give them a somewhat theatrical, as opposed to cinematic, air. But, all in all, a good film. 7/10.

SHALLOWNESS AFTER WAR

[germaniaosorio · 7/10 · 13 May 2021]

I remember this movie was panned by some critics. Sting was a target of their ironies.

When I had access to cable TV I could watch it for the first time and it seemed like a series of vignettes of Susan's different stages in life and I hated her. I thought she was self-centered and self-righteous. Despicable character. Well, that's what I thought when I was 18.

I watched it once again recently now as an adult and I had a different perspective. I saw a woman who spent her youth as part of an exciting period of history (WWII), risking her life for a cause that she thought was significant. When the war was over, the film shows her difficulty at fitting in back to her mundane life in England with a string of unsatisfactory jobs. The main issue here is that she tries to find a meaning to her life now that there is nothing to fight for. Her mind is still in France when she joined the resistance.

She is desperate to find something exciting again. So she finds a man to father a child (she doesn't want a relationship, just a man to get her impregnated) and fails, then, she marries a dull diplomatic employee who, for some reason, stands by her for more than a decade hoping for this selfish woman to appreciate him, and she fails. She's unlikeable, but at the same time realistic.

Add to the mix a mental illness and it's not a movie for the ones who expect a resolution. Because there's none. Just like real life. She feels empty in an upper-class world plenty of material things, but nothing of substance.

Kate Nelligan should have starred

[john_pingree · 6/10 · 16 December 2002]

Kate Nelligan was brilliant on stage in the leading role of Susan Traherne. She originated the part in the British stage production and then repeated it on Broadway several years later. Nelligan projected great strength early on, so that when her character began falling apart, it was all the more devastating. So it's a shame she didn't get to play the part on screen.

Then again, maybe it's just as well. The movie has fabulous production design and an excellent supporting cast, but it fills in too much for the audience, making things obvious where more ambiguity would have made audiences think more.

Meryl Streep wasn't *bad* in the movie version, but she doesn't "fit," in my mind. That said, she was excellent when she worked again with PLENTY director Fred Schepisi in A CRY IN THE DARK.

"Plenty" Was Just Plenty Of Streep

[StrictlyConfidential · 6/10 · 21 June 2020]

Following hot on the heels of her success in "Sophie's Choice" (1982), "Plenty" (1985) would be yet another WW2 picture featuring the notable acting/dialect talents of Meryl Streep.

Striving to hopefully cash in on yet another potential Oscar-caliber performance from Streep, "Plenty" basically came down to being nothing more (or less) than an extended character study by Streep in her role as Susan Traherne.

If you're not much of a Streep fan, then her portrayal of Susan can certainly come across as being quite annoying and, yes, downright exasperating at times.

But, of course, that isn't to say that Streep's "Susan" didn't deliver her fair share of magic moments, 'cause, believe me, she most certainly did. I mean, at least Streep had the guts and gumption to explore, in great depth, her character's less-than-attractive side, without too much reservation.

In my opinion, had "Plenty's" cast not been as rock solid as it was, featuring the likes of Sam Neill, John Gielgud, and Sting, then, I think that this film would've probably just fallen flat on its face.

Quite enough

[nomorefog · 4/10 · 26 May 2011]

Plenty' is one of those films that is difficult to like, even though you may feel obliged to admire it. It represents an allegory of some kind or another, which is something that I read about in a newspaper review. Well, I must have read about it somewhere, because as I was watching it, I didn't understand what it was supposed to be about and needed some assistance when it was all over.

The deadly weakness of this film is that Meryl Streep plays a woman that any sensible person in the audience would want to strangle, because she is so completely selfish and bloody-minded. By the end of the film she has become mentally unhinged and I would challenge anyone to feel any sympathy with her plight. It may have been a good career move for Streep to play, at least on paper, such a non-standard type of female character, but for those of us in the audience, it is a bit difficult to make the connection to her. She literally appears out of nowhere at the beginning of the film; she appears to have no family; despite being middle-class to the backbone and having a good job, she is disoriented, mentally unstable and continually whining about how boring life is. She marries a man from the diplomatic service and takes a downward slide towards either schizophrenia or psychosis, I'm not sure which. They move to another country and she remains unhappily sedated for the rest of the film, after attempting to have a relationship with a working class lad and it coming to a bad end, apparently a dilemma indicative, according to many reviewers, of the inability of the post-war Atlee government to organise a truce between the classes in England. Personally, I was not convinced.

The supporting cast is actually quite impressive, but they seem to have little purpose other than to stroke Streep's colossal ego. Sam Neill plays her contemporary during the French Resistance; Charles Dance is her sympathetic and put-upon husband, Tracey Ullmann is her best friend (and I didn't envy her the task) and Sting is the working class lad she cons into sleeping with her.

I don't mean to sound so smug but I was not convinced by a word of 'Plenty' and disliked the experience. Basically, it's far too cold and cerebral for a commercial venture that has been presumably made to attract an audience. The story, if it could be called that, is contrived, and what the film is meant to be about is obscure. Streep is insufferable in an impossible role and I found the entire thing nasty, unconvincing and totally lacking in any entertainment value whatsoever.

The story of a woman past the verge of a nervous breakdown.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 22 December 2011]

What must have seemed like a complex characterization is simply confusing in this Meryl Streep movie about an overly neurotic woman whose direction as a human being has no focus. She is Susan Traherne, who goes from Ally messenger in World War II to diplomat's wife in post-war England, all the while alienating practically everybody around her with the most bizarre behavior that seems to have no justification. Snippets of this woman's life are missing to properly flow from situation to situation, making the whole story a rather blurry mess. As Streep had risen to become the top dramatic actress in Hollywood, she was (and still is) mesmerizing. But it seems more like an acting exercises than an actual role to play, so it is no wonder that this film has seemed to have slipped into obscurity over her more known 80's films ("Sophie's Choice" and the same year's Best Picture, "Out of Africa").

Only two of the supporting players (Tracy Ullman as an eccentric writer and Sir John Gielgud as Sir Leonard Darwin) really stand out, giving truly strong performances. Charles Dance, Sam Neill and Sting are the men in Streep's life, but they are easily swallowed up, both by the actresses' performance and the character's hunger to emotionally chew up and spit out each of her lovers. The film covers a lot of mid 20th Century history, from World War II to Queen Elizabeth's coronation (used as a backdrop for a sexual scene between a fully clothed Streep and Sting) and later the Suez Canal conflict. This is the type of film that might have better worked as a BBC or PBS mini-series to fully tie together the entire story to make Streep's character more understandable and sympathetic.

A Delicate Inbalace

[axlgarland · 10/10 · 13 August 2005]

This is a film where you can get lost, wonderfully lost. Following Susan, the character created on the page by David Hare and on the screen by Meryl Streep, is a journey of gloriously unexpected ups and downs. It may be because the amazing Meryl Streep goes trough the analytic intellect of David Hare with her heart on her sleeve and I felt shattered and moved by the access she provided me into the heart and soul of her own personal labyrinth. To look back with regret and feel that memories of fleeting moments of extraordinary beauty can keep you going and see you through whatever hell fate seems determined to throw your way. Meryl Streep never looked this beautiful and the transparency of her missteps are a magic sweep of the most enthralling kind. Irrationaly sane. Like most of the great bipolar. They know, they've seen through. There is nothing ahead only behind and now it's too bloody late. The stages of Susan's journey, to the after war lands of plenty are framed by her own geniality - the character's and the actress's - Susan is overwhelmed by her own awareness, lonelier and lonelier, Meryl overwhelm us with her own sublime generosity. Fred Schepsi, the extraordinary man at the helm, keeps the puzzle open and clear. Like most works of art, not everyone will be ready to open up to this experience. Pretty frustrating let me tell you. I would love to share this experience with everyone.

what happened here?

[crap-47 · 1/10 · 14 March 2005]

This has to be the single worst movie I have ever seen. The story is poorly constructed, the acting is dismal, it's simply a waste of time.

Set in post war Europe the story had potential especially with the main character fighting with the affect of working as an undercover agent in the war.

But it never lifts off. The plot is thin, the characters are not convincing and are poorly played. And Streep never acts well at all. Very very disappointing.

I have been wrecking my head for days trying to find out what went wrong here but am afraid I have to give up.

Don't even think about watching it.

One of Streep's Best

[Mankin · 21 July 1999]

In "Plenty" (***1/2). Meryl Streep gives one of her greatest performances in the complex role of "Susan Traherne", an idealistic young Englishwoman whose compulsive need to stir things up comes in conflict with a crippling lack of courage. We follow her life from her days in the French Resistance at the end of World War II to her professional and emotional decline during the 60's. Her key line: "I want to change the world, but I don't know how." The supporting cast, production and direction are superb, and the score by Bruce Smeaton is hauntingly beautiful. The character functions as both a metaphor for postwar England and a real flesh and blood human being, although it's a flaw that we don't learn more about her family background, apparently an upper class one, which might have contributed more to an understanding of her later, often perverse, behavior. The only two people she seems to have in the world are Charles Dance, playing her long-suffering diplomat husband and Tracy Ullmann, wonderful as her free-spirited best friend, probably the kind of person Susan would like to have been if it were not for her "fatal weakness": she likes "losing control." This film has been newly released in its original Panavision dimension on DVD and looks terrific. Seeing it the way it should be seen only enhances my opinion that it's one of the most underrated movies of the 80's.

I'm sure this is a better film than I remember

[lucyrfisher · 4/10 · 9 May 2021]

A film about the aftermath of 1945 - but really a film about 1985? The central character is a woman driven mad by a society that seems ordinary and complacent after her terrifying life as a spy in occupied France. She was upheld by the idea that it would all be worthwhile - after the war life would be glorious, transfigured. What happened? The class system returned in force and everybody just seemed concerned with making money.

Surely she is suffering from PTSD? Or do women have to go mad before they can speak truth to power?

What sticks in the mind: an agonising evening where she is left to entertain a Japanese diplomatic couple. Charles Dance as her husband comes home to find Susan probably drunk, and the Japanese visitors struggling to remain polite and make conversation about plays they have seen. They clearly should have made an excuse and left hours ago.

It's hard to portray mental illness on screen but Meryl Streep and the director do a good job. A desperate carer/enabler pleading "It's time for bed", while their partner decides to redecorate the study at two in the morning and starts pulling off strips of wallpaper. The usual cliche is sweeping everything off a desk onto the floor - I can't remember if she does this or not.

Tracey Ullman is a constant friend who represents free-spiritedness and lliving your own life. She expresses this by turning up in a man's suit and bare feet - she has spent the night with a stranger and somehow he has sequestered her clothes. What did she do for money? How will she get into her flat without her handbag and doorkey? She doesn't care - she is a hippy avant le lettre.

There is a strange scene late in the story where Charles Dance has taken Susan to a quiet life in North Africa. Tracey turns up to visit - they are all now wearing hippy style with lots of ethnic fabric. Susan seems drugged - like a different person. Another awkward occasion - they ring so true, which makes the film hard to watch.

We are supposed to think that being a free spirit and destroying yourself is more important than flourishing in the postwar world - that ideals trump a comfortable life. And don't forget Susan's irregular behaviour is enabled by her husband and his money and position.

In real life, there was a London club for ex-SOE operatives, where they relived past glories and drank themselves to death.

Confusing Continuity

[crumpytv · 5/10 · 28 April 2021]

Sorry, following all the rave reviews, but I just found this film confusing and poorly structured. A little more direction as to the time periods would have helped rather than expecting the viewer to have a degree in British history.

Meryl Streep, Tracy Ullman, Charles Dance, Sir John Gielgud and Sting ... now there is a strange mix.

PLENTY to think about, to talk about...

[philip-ct · 10/10 · 11 March 2006]

This is one film which has grown on me since I saw it on main circuit. It is an intelligent film, which demands a lot of active viewing. Aided with an incisive script by David Hare, it looks at Britain's history from the end of WWII, through to Queen Elizabeth's coronation the Suez Crisis, all counterpointed by the lead character, Susan Treherne (played, in I think one of her best moments, by Meryl Streep.) The film plays on the word "Plenty" and the hope for UK after WWII that there would be plenty - in itself ironic. It is also a study of a woman afflicted by bipolar disorder (manic-depression). This is not the focus of the film; in fact, it is never explicitly stated.... At the time portrayed, psychiatric illness wasn't acknowledged - it tended to be swept under the carpet.

Streep imbues Susan with a dignity, despite her liking to "lose control"; there are excellent performances by Sam Neill (Lazar, her war-time "love"), Tracey Ullman, Sting, Charles Dance (her long-suffering husband) and John Gielgud (as the diplomat who takes the fall for the Suez Crisis.) It's not an easy film, but worth watching and discussing. It must be one of the most underrated films on IMDb.

Do yourself a favour, ACTIVELY engage with this. Don't let this film be overshadowed by Meryl Streep's other films of this time, like the overrated Out of Africa. They don't hold a torch to this film!

Plenty of nothing.

[kennyrtaylor · 1/10 · 24 June 2020]

This movie is so up itself, I'm convinced it was a parody of a drama that I hadn't seen. At least Sam Neil had the good sense to get in & out of it quickly. (Well played, Sir!) It's an absolute stinker. Makes "Weekend at Bernies" seem like "Citizen Kane."

Earnest but not entirely successful adaptation

[Patsy-9 · 28 July 1999]

Inspired by my recent experience of seeing Cate Blanchett perform "Plenty" on the London stage, I rented the 1985 film version. It is a solid effort, and sports some excellent acting, but unfortunately isn't half of the play, but not for the usual reasons.

Films from the play are often undirected. This one is the opposite. It's overdirected. It's almost as if the director is to eager to cast off its stage roots, and he it swings too far the other way. For example, consider the scene at the reception with the Burmese diplomat. When Streep bursts into her ill-timed monologue, the camera moves into a close up. I think the scene plays better when we can see the reactions of the other characters.

Also, the humour doesn't really come through. The major laugh line in the play (along with one about inbreeding in a cut scene) is where the John Gielgud character remarks that having a mad wife is not a hindrance in the diplomatic corps. It was hilarious on the stage, but hardly elicits a smile in the movie. The problem isn't the acting - we know from "Arthur" and elsewhere what Sir John can do with a good line - but with the direction.

The other big problem is with the second-from-last scene. It plays well on the stage precisely because you don't know who it is with her until the end. Also, it was a mistake to make Codename Lazar her lover in France. It is better for him to be someone she just knew briefly, saw at his best and most courageous, and now learns is just as scummy as she is. Furthermore, it ties in ironically with her line about not wanting to sleep with someone you know.

I'm not a major theater-phile, and it annoys me to no end when people protest plays and musicals being made into films. So I surprise myself by saying that the stage is the place to see "Plenty".

Dreary, boring, non-eventful

[martgym · 1/10 · 20 October 2021]

The first 15 minutes seemed to be very badly acted and on reflection I should of gone with my gut and deleted this garbage. Literally very little happens at all. Just follows the life of a woman and her using other people for her own gain seems a little far fetched; She's just a bit mentally unstable.

Realism sacrificed for dramatic story line

[adriennemay · 4/10 · 26 August 2015]

Spoiled right from the start, from scene one but when our heroine decides to have a histrionic fit while hiding from a German patrol, I quickly lost interest.

This inattention to detail in the interest of character development, is just poor direction. So she was frightened, would we not all be? But would one give oneself away by having a sudden fit of histrionics, speaking loudly, speaking at all in a high pitched voice while hiding in a ditch from the enemy? I think not. If that is what she was like, she was clearly in the wrong occupation and should never have reached within a hundred miles of occupied France. It killed the movie for me.

The heroines of the resistance probably emerged from their extremely dangerous occupation bearing lasting scars, but while there they were valiant, sensible to the risks, fearful. They did not howl in fear while German's were in earshot.

A good deal of the dialogue is stilted, unreal. The addition of Sting, a great mistake. It needed an actor not a rock star. All in all the next worst Meryl Streep film to Mama Mia.

Alone In The World

[littlemartinarocena · 10/10 · 1 November 2007]

"Plenty" is a film I watch as often as other people watch "It's A Wonderful Life" or the first "Terminator", yes, I know, I must be a very strange guy. I was a teenager when I saw "Plenty" on stage at the National Theater in London. I remembered the play vividly, Kate Nelligan's performance was sensational. Fred Schepsi's "Plenty" has a totally unique life of its own. We're allowed into Susan's mind and Susan has Meryl Streep's face. Her performance makes her character's intellect visible, cinematic. Intimidating, fascinating, extraordinarily beautiful performance. I think David Hare has written here one of the best female characters I've ever seen and Meryl Streep strips it of every pretense. She can lie even to herself but not to us. It is mesmerizing at times. A ping pong ball going through the character's brain as she listens. Alone, so alone in the world. She never expresses it with words although she, I think, is totally aware of it. The infuriating sense of being incapable to adapt, to belong. Wanting and not wanting. Mesmerizing! As if this wasn't enough, Tracey Ullman, Charles Dance, Sting, Ian McKellen and John Gielgud giving, perhaps one of the best film performances during the final part of of his life I felt rather lonely in my love for this film until I started reading some of the comments posted here and realized I wasn't all alone in the world. Nice to meet you all.

Compound of Fractures

[ThurstonHunger · 5/10 · 9 December 2022]

A fractured tale of a fractured woman told in a fractured style.

I actually enjoyed the story-telling with ellipses, and that may have been inherited from the original theatrical play. Others have found it disorienting. The movie is dolled up with a celebrity cast (it seems director Fred Schepisi has done this before especially with pop music stars, notably his "Six Degrees of Separation" with Will Smith.)

The film was born old (in 1985 reflecting back on WWII and aftermath), and I've now piled nearly an additional 20 years on top of that. Meryl Streep fans I hope have already watched this, I think Schepisi said something about how emotions move across her face like shadows across a landscape). Pretty amazing how her porcelain skin can invoke fugues and frustration; no fractures on the outside. Alas, isn't that often the way...

Streep's character suffers from a sort of vague mental illness (with a less vague prescription for sedation). Is she too sensitive/honest for the stiff upper lip of British society and the home office? Has she an addiction to being "out of control" - the character's self-assessment. Is there an element of proto-feminism in a man's world? Scenes stationed in Jordan, perhaps fractured out, may have factored in there as well.

The answer may be as fractured as the telling of the tale.

Ultimately for me, the film felt like the repercussions of her role behind enemy lines (and briefly behind closed doors with a fellow Brit on a mission of derring-do). Those moments under paratrooper skies and occupied streets may have shaken her to the core, psychically and romantically.

The problem with that reading in real or reel life is it leaves a lifetime of denouement.

I will say two sterling moments for me which now warrant the spoiler tag

1) Sir John Gielgud's character excuses himself after being lambasted by an out-of-control Streep at dinner party. Later we find he's fallen from grace/standing for speaking up to power likely aligned with Streep's thinking with far more to risk than a cold entree.

2) The reunion with Sam Neil adds more algia to the nostalgia, as is often the case in a romanticized tryst from long ago. His clear-eyed resignation a stark contrast to Streeps high on a feeling, a feeling once fleeting stretched out over the length of the film, if not forever.

The two Neil scenes nearly bookend the movie, there is a throwback to the delusion from the time of the first scene, which I guess was the point of the film.

A dream of plenty winds up with not much? Hence the 5 for me.... Streep devotes only for the must-see.

PTSD, anyone?

[Noir-It-All · 7 December 2009]

I was moved by this film. I was aware of Kate Nelligan's performance as Susan Traherne in the original stage version, a lusty, glowing former Resistance heroine with a shattered psyche. In the film, Meryl Streep focused on a beautiful, disarming character's inconsistent control of the crazy energy lurking underneath.

Plenty could be re-released today on a double bill with the recently released Brothers. Both show the long-term effects of war, fought overtly and covertly, on combatants and those who love them. It is no secret that the soldier in Brothers wreaks havoc on his family after returning from one tour of duty too many in Iraq. "People with PTSD have persistent frightening thoughts and memories of their ordeal and feel emotionally numb, especially with people they were once close to."

So, one way to view and appreciate Susan Traherne and her effect on her husband, friends and co-workers is from this perspective within the context of their cultures.

Good flick around bi-polar and depression

[rollernerd · 5/10 · 14 September 2020]

Welcome back to another edition of Adam's Reviews!! **queue in intro music**

Tonight's movie review is epic drama Plenty (1985), a film that spans through Britain's history from the end of World War II through to 1960's and follows the life of Susan, played by the queen herself Meryl Streep. Susan is an interesting complex character who has everything in the world yet is never satisfied. It's not confirmed in the film but wouldn't be surprised if the film itself is a narrative of bipolar disorder and depression. It is never explicitly stated and makes you wonder if bipolar and depression was researched during the periods of the 40s till the 60s. The film overall never pulled me and couldn't understand the ups and downs of a person who literally has everything and purposely self-sabotages everything. Great acting my Charles Dance for you Golden Child fans. Streep does well to invite us to her enigmatic heart and soul who seems to be chasing the past which results into her lonely position. But the overall story just didn't grab me. The story of how one person does want to adapt yet is trying to belong and find a role that fulfills their life is cool but the time skips and the filmmakers not clarifying how long each small story arc has passed was annoying. Overall great acting however the story wasn't engaging 5.2/10.

an under-rated tour de force

[RG-5 · 9/10 · 30 September 1998]

"Plenty" needs to be seen on a big screen in a theatre; more than most, this is a film that suffers in its translation to a TV screen. (Among other things, there are scenes that are simply ruined in the format change--like the hilarious scene of Streep and Sting on a sofa as Queen Elizabeth's coronation plays live on the tellie!) Sound is also important to fully appreciating the film--like the constant reminders of the sound of opening parachutes that echo throughout the story.

It's easy to understand why the film was not a box office success; it focuses on a woman who is not terribly likeable, but I contend that it is a movie rich in observations that transcend post-war Britain and the borish woman who develops in that milieu. "Plenty" is (among other things) about passion, diplomacy, memory, self-deception and the great expectations that are so easily squashed in our unheroic modern world. The film (and Hare's play before it) revolves around a crucial scene brilliantly played by a startlingly mad Streep and Ian McKellan's icily insightful foreign service officer--well past the film's mid-point. After his long-in-coming dose of reality, Streep's Susan takes a tailspin into the movie's melancholy conclusion. It's not an easy film to "enjoy," but the uniformly brilliant performances from Streep, Charles Dance, Tracy Ullman and John Gielgud make the film fascinating to watch and rewarding to have experienced.