Interesteg What makes it different from others?

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

trimmerb1234 How could anyone who had read the book and who had any respect for literature, especially a respected screenwriter such as Alan Plater, turn this story of glum penny-pinched '30's London into 1990's-style standard advertiser's jolly-jumpered "Heritage" golden nostalgia?. Not only did it do violence to the tone of the book, it did violence to its very essence. It does violence too to history - to what it was like to live in London in the 1930's on less than £2 per week. All the more reprehensible as the book was largely autobiographical. Comstock, a writer, believes that he has talent as a poet but instead is prostituting that talent writing crass advertising slogans in return for money and a comfortable life. This belief that he is wasting his real talent - and his life in this way causes him to attempt to reject the entire world of money, to live in (moderate) poverty and to devote himself to writing poetry. Having rejected "the Money God" he endures the consequences. In the book but not in the film the petty mean realities of poverty in cold 1930's London are spelt out in detail. They weigh him down, make him embittered - and obsessed with the very thing that he wished to escape: Money. His obsession takes the form not of a desire but of an increasing loathing where every kind of failure or slight he suffers is blamed on his lack of money and other people's veneration of it. Comstock's rejection of money makes his life complicated and extremely limited - deciding what each coin in his pocket might buy - can he smoke his single cigarette today or should he to save it for later in the week?His miserable lodgings are policed over by an ever-watchful landlady who neither allows female visitors inside the front door nor the making or consumption of hot drinks in the room, thus forcing Comstock to find furtive and frustrating ways round the latter and to conduct his romancing of his long-suffering girl friend Rosemary in the streets and public places. Comstock believes the reason Rosemary will not sleep with him is his Lack of Money. Worst of all - for him - he finds that having rejected money and enduring the consequences, he cannot even make any progress on his supposed life's work - his poetry.The book is in many ways glum. Comstock, as the author notes, becomes complaining and miserable. Comstock describes himself as "moth-eaten". His family had sacrificed all so that he alone would get a "good education" and thus consigned themselves to a life of meanness on his behalf. Comstock's consequent perverse decision to give up "a good job" thus distressed them and gives him occasional twinges of guilt.A large facet of the book is the way that the reader to some extent comes to share this mean and rather humiliating life. The glumness though is relieved by the self knowledge and perspective of the author making it at times wryly comical.Comstock is not a Socialist. He has no positive vision, only the negative one of the corrupting effects of money and even those Orwell portrays as being obsessive. His wealthy friend Ravelson, a Marxist, tries to enlist him without success. Orwell, in real life from a middle-class comfortable background himself, chose to lead a life which at best was hair-shirt. At worst had him "Down and Out in Paris and London" and a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. No other writer in English had quite such a gloomy and masochistic lifestyle. Comstock chose to work in a badly paid job but will not sponge, he does not accept charity. He has a great deal of integrity especially concerning Art and cannot but be revolted and oppressed by the foolish images and slogans on billboards all around him, some of which he had written: "Corner Table Enjoys his Bovex!" His rather inconsistent scruples and artistic sensibility are a curse not a blessing. The book is presumably Orwell talking about what he felt, experienced and believed then.This production is pleasant but all that is notable in the book is missing. The instinct for those who respect Orwell's talent (and can endure his glumness) and have any sense of period might well be to throw their copy into the bin baffled at how such a travesty came to be made.But an excellent BBC TV version was made in the early 1960's starring the late Alfred Lynch and Anne Stallybrass which stayed true to the book. In black and white and studio bound it nevertheless stands head and shoulders above this later production.

jeremy3 I haven't read the Orwell novel, so I don't know if it is true to the story. I found this movie entertaining, however. A very promising advertising drafter/marketer decides to turn down a promotion and opts to be a poet. Richard Grant's Comstock is reminiscent of many idealists, who think that one should pursue their dreams no matter how unrealistic they are. Comstock hopes to escape his hopelessly middle-to-upper class World, where the apidistra plant represents the horrible repressiveness of this environment. Rosemary (Helena Bonham Carter) plays an anti-romantic woman, which is refreshing. In the Victorian novels the woman falls for men of little promise unconditionally. In this story, she leaves him for a time, believing that he has become too ridiculous. Comstock, however, finds himself in a working class neighborhood, working at a lowly bookstore. He is entranced by the "free spiritedness" of the working class. There are no strict rules to abide by, and people are more honest. However, a painful lesson in poverty convinces Comstock to go back and reclaim his old job. Comstock has found his peace with the World, and is happy to be part of the middle class World. I found this very hopeful, in our era of the declining middle class. The movie made clear that in England, the middle class educated feel very isolated and alienated. It was an interesting movie.

Zagreb-1 This film, based on George Orwell's novel, manages to be entertaining and funny. It centres around a frustrated poet, Gordon Comstock (played by the excellent Richard E Grant (although Grant is a little old to play the role - in the novel Comstock was in his early 30s)) who tires of working for what we would now call "The Man" at New Albion advertising company and quits his successful career in order to persue his first love of poetry, particularly an opus called "London Pleasures". To this end he moves into rented accommodation, owned by a typical 1930s example of the "respectable" middle-class, who, of course, keeps an Aspidistra in Comstock's room. To Comstock, this plant represents all that he is rebelling against. Comstock struggles through most of the film attempting to get his poems published. He is helped and hindered by his Girlfriend, played by Helena Bonham Carter. She also acts as his conscience, badgering him for his foolishness and his pretentiousness. Comstock manages to get one of his poems published in the USA and is sent a cheque as payment. He manages, however, to blow most of this in one night and ends said night in the cells, arrested for drunkeness. Thrown out of his "respectable" accommodation for his crime, he moves into very cheap lodgings in a rough part of London and continues his epic poem "London Pleasures" Whilst living in this squalor, he discovers his girlfriend is pregnant. This is where the movie falls down. Admittedly, this is a problem with the book. The book has the same ending, but Orwell covered it more realistically. Comstock is forced to confront his responsibility and returns to his old job and gives up on his poetry. In the book, Gordon was loathe to surrender his poetry, but did so for the sake of his woman and child. In the film, Gordon is suddenly converted from idealistic poet to smug middle-class conformist. In the book, Gordon's embracing of the aspidistra was unpleasant but believable and even slightly knowingly ironic. In the film, it is, as above, smug and unlovable. This flawed ending drags down what could have been an excellent film. A shame, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it for the great stuff that precedes it.

drn5 The British 'heritage film' industry is out of control. There's nothing wrong with filming classic novels, but why must they all be filmed by talentless nobodies? This film rips the guts out of Orwell's tough novel, turning it into a harmless, fluffy romantic comedy. 'Aspidistra' may not be Orwell's best work, but no-one who reads it can forget its superb depiction of poverty. Orwell emphasises not only the cold and the hunger, but the humiliation of being poor. In the novel, London is a bleak, grey, cold, heartless city, and Comstock prays for it to be blasted away by a squadron of bombers. But this film irons out anything that might be in any way disturbing, and creates instead a jolly nostalgic trip to charming 1930s London, in which everything is lit with shafts of golden sunlight, and even the slums of Lambeth are picturesque and filled with freshly scrubbed urchins and happy prostitutes. Comstock's poems about the sharp wind sweeping across the rubbish-strewn streets seem completely out of place in this chocolate-box world. Worst of all is the script's relentless bonhomie, ancient jokes, and clunking dialogue. It's so frustrating because Richard E. Grant is the perfect person to play Gordon Comstock, and the film is packed with great actors. But it's all for nothing. This film made me so angry! Britain's literary history is something to be proud of for its richness, complexity and power. And what do we do with it? We employ bland nobodies to turn it into soft-centred, anodyne pap for people who want to feel that they are 'getting some culture' while they drink their Horlicks and quietly doze off.