OVP: The Go-Between (1971)

Film: The Go-Between (1971)

Stars: Julie Christie, Edward Fox, Alaln Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave, Dominic Guard

Director: Joseph Losey

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Margaret Leighton)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of the weirder aspects of streaming services is that they have a ticking clock on some of their movies. Each month, because I'm crazy organized about such things, I peruse the list of films that are leaving the Netflix, Hulu, & Criterion platforms, and diligently check if any of them are ones I can't see somewhere else (and if so, I watch them, regardless of how random they might seem).  This last month that was the case with The Go-Between, a relatively forgotten film from 1971 that was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.  Based on a novel by LP Hartley, the movie is a tale of forbidden romance in turn of the century rural England.

(Spoilers Ahead) The story centers around Leo (Guard as a child, Redgrave as an adult) a young boy who is spending the summer at the country estate of his wealthier friend Marcus.  Marcus has the measles for most of that summer (which is fine by Leo as Marcus' favorite hobby is bullying Leo), and so Leo gets to befriend the adults, specifically Marcus' sister Marian (Christie) & a tenant farmer next door named Ted Burgess (Bates).  While Marian is expected to be engaged to the proper Viscount Trimingham (Fox), she is having a passionate, illicit affair with Ted, and Leo realizes this after reading one of the letters the two carry back-and-forth with each other.  The movie comes to a head when Marian's mother Lady Maudsley (Leighton) figures out what is happening by breaking Leo, and stops the affair, which ends with Ted killing himself & a forlorn Marian marrying Trimingham, though she doesn't love him in the same way.

This is exactly the sort of movie that I adore.  I am such a big fan of a slow build romance, one with clear stakes & ones where not everyone is going to come out of the movie unscathed (including our seemingly oblivious narrator).  In fact, upon writing that paragraph about the plot, I was almost convinced that I had misjudged this movie during my viewing of it, it so piqued my interest.  However, The Go-Between is not special, and it does not execute on its fine story well.  The movie is ridiculously slow-paced, to the point of nauseam (how many times can you watch Leo drop off a letter?), and the romance doesn't really work since Christie & Bates are basically supporting players in their own movie (you don't get invested in them because the filmmakers insist on keeping the movie entirely from Leo's perspective).  As a result the tragic ending, with an aging Marian trying to convince an older Leo that she did, in fact, love Ted (and basically stating to him that at least one of her children was the product of her relationship with Ted), doesn't fall through as you haven't properly invested in these characters.  A good idea, badly launched.

The movie's acting is all-over-the-board.  I thought that Guard was beyond insufferable (child acting in the 1970's might have been when the practice hit its nadir), and Christie/Bates (both game performers in a normal circumstance) underplay their parts and don't even try to insert some sex appeal into these roles.  Leighton was the Oscar nominee of the bunch, and there's a part of me that gets why she was cited.  After nearly two snail-paced hours, she comes out like a lioness, ready to pounce on the dullness we've been through, but there's no build.  She's clearly an aristocrat who has seen all, knows all, but she doesn't play her character like that in the early scenes...there's nothing and then everything.  She's not bad, but she doesn't instruct the audience to wait for her dragon lady.  As a result, this nomination feels less like it's for a great work or a scene-stealer, and more a burst-of-relief that someone is finally ending the monotony.