Review: He Knew He Was Right

Lastly in The Anthony Trollope Collection, my mother and I watched He Knew He Was Right. There are a couple of funny subplots, but one serious main plot. Here are some of my thoughts.

Synopsis

Box Art

After a year of being happily married, Louis and Emily Trevelyan (Oliver Dimesdale and Laura Fraser) have a son and a nice home in London. Troubles befall their marriage when Louis suspects Emily of cheating on him with Colonel Osborne (Bill Nighy), her godfather. Though Emily is not cheating on Louis, she still refuses to submit to Louis's wishes that she not see him.

The story has many subplots. One involves Emily's sister, Nora Rowley (Christina Cole), and Louis's friend, Hugh Stanbury, and how they fall in love. Another involves Hugh's sister, Dorothy, visiting her Aunt Stanbury, an old maid with money; Aunt Stanbury would like to see her married to the vicar, Mr. Gibson (David Tennant), however Dorothy likes someone else. Another involves sisters, Camilla and Arabella French (Claudie Blakley and Fenella Woolgar), fighting over Mr. Gibson. As you can see, there are many subplots, however they can be viewed on their own, as some don't involve the main plot.

Characters

The acting was alright. It was interesting how the characters would face the camera and tell the "audience" what they were thinking. I don't always like it when movies do that, but it didn't really bother me here.



Mr. Gibson (David Tennant) with Camilla (Claudie Blakley)
to the right and Arabella French (Fenella Woolgar) to the
left.

 I honestly preferred the subplot characters to the main characters. The subplot with Mr. Gibson was probably the best part of the story; all the characters were so hilarious! Camilla French became physchotic and irrational about Mr. Gibson, while Mr. Gibson was absolutely afraid of her (at one point, he was actually cowering under a plant!)! This subplot was probably the best subplot in He Knew He Was Right. It was just so hilarious!

In He Knew He Was Right, there are two American sisters, the misses Spaldings. I didn't mind their characters, but I did have a slight problem with them: whatever accent they were speaking was not an American accent. As an American, I never have heard anyone speak they way they did. Though the one Miss Spalding, Caroline (Anna-Louise Plowman), was born in New Zealand, so maybe that had something to do with it. But either way, the accents that the American characters were speaking did not sound American.

Wow, was it odd to see Christina Cole in a completely different role! Her previous role were (to name a few) Mrs. Elton from Emma and Clarissa Payne from What a Girl Wants: both roles were catty women who want to control everything. Here as Nora she was pleasant and sweet, and she was able to pull it off well! I thought that the only roles that she could get were of catty women, but here she proves that she is much more versatile, as Nora was such a sweet character.

The main characters... I felt sorry for Emily because she really didn't do anything wrong. Colonel Osborne seemed to like causing trouble: he knew that something was going wrong everytime him an Emily met, and he should have either stopped coming to see Emily or simply talk to Louis. Louis himself became more and more crazy as the story went on. Again, I really perferred the subplot to the main plot (which is probably not a good thing) probably because the subplots were more entertaining. Spoiler The main plot just seemed to be a downward spiral in which it wasn't getting better for the characters. I tend to like happy endings to sad endings. End of Spoiler

Scenery
The country scenery was very nice, but some of the scenes in London had dark overtones to illustrate the seriousness of the story.  Some of the scenes take place at balls where the buildings look very nice and towards the beginning, the Trevelyans had a very nice house, but the other indoor scenes took place in either simpler cottages or completely run down homes. Some of the scenes also seemed to take place on either cloudy or "about to rain" days, so there were some dark overtones. This was appropriate due to the seriousness of the main plot.

Costumes

Nora (Christina Cole) with Emily (Laura Fraser) as
they leave London. 

Some of the costumes were quite nice. Emily was always well dressed and always looked nice. She had very nice dresses (white seemed to work very well for her) and her hair was also very nicely arranged. Nora was also nicely dressed; I think her clothes tended to have more bolder colors than Emily's.

The French sisters had similar clothes on the whole movie. They wore lightly colored dresses with a print. This was probably to illustrate how similar they were (at least at the beginning). Their clothes didn't really differ in style; as a poorer family, their mother probably couldn't afford a big wardrobe.

Something that my mother and I noticed: Dorothy seemed to wear the same dress throughout the whole miniseries. She seemed to be wearing the same plaid, high necked dress throughout her whole stay with Aunt Stanbury. I suppose that since her family was poor, she didn't have a wide variety of dresses, but it was still something that we noticed.

Aunt Stanbury also wore the same dress throughout the entire movie: the same black dress with the same black and white lace veil. I suppose that because she is older and unmarried, she has a little excuse.

Music
The music didn't really stand out for me as much. Most of the songs are very serious due to the serious nature of the main story. The songs did not really strike me as they do for other period dramas. There is no soundtrack available that I know of.

Overall: 3.5/5
I enjoyed He Knew He Was Right, but I would probably reccomend the subplots to the main plot. The subplots themselves could have been their own movie: they were that separate from the main plot. To me, a miniseries shouldn't have that happen. I didn't hate the main plot, but I much more enjoyed the subplots because the main plot was really serious. However, a lot of the costumes were very pretty and the country scenes were very nice. The acting was well done, and I would not be sorry to watch it again.

He Knew He Was Right is a part of The Anthony Trollope Collection, though you can also buy it separately. It runs for 235 minutes with four one hour long episodes. It is available on DVD.

Review: The Barchester Chronicles

Next in the Anthony Trollope Collection, my mother and I watched The Barchester Chronicles. At first I didn't think that it was going to amount to much, but was I wrong! I really enjoyed it. Here are some of my thoughts.

Synopsis
The Barchester Chronicles is taken from two books in The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope. Episodes 1 and 2 are taken from The Warden. John Bold, a doctor, takes legal action against Mr. Septimus Harding (Donald Pleasence), a clergyman and warden of Hirams Hospital. While John Bold is good friends with Mr. Harding and in love with his daughter, Eleanor, he still believes that Mr. Harding is making too much money and is in violation of a will.

Episodes 3 through 7 are taken from Barchester Towers. When the bishop of Barchester dies, a new bishop is appointed. Bishop Proudie (Clive Swift) is a weak man controlled by his wife and chaplain, Mr. Slope (Alan Rickman). The plot's of episodes 3 through 7 revolve around the clergymen of Barchester and their relation to Bishop Proudie and Mr. Slope.

Characters

There are some very recognizable actors and actresses in The Barchester Chronicles: Donald Pleasance as Mr. Harding, Alan Rickman (Sense and Sensibility) as Mr. Slope, Clive Swift (Keeping Up Appearances) as Bishop Proudie.

Mr. Harding was such a lovable character! He was such a sweet old man that I couldn't believe that John Bold was making trouble about him. It wasn't like he was a greedy, mean man: he was a nice, old man who liked music and he would spend his time training the choir for church. He was one of my favorite characters throught this whole miniseries.

Mr. Slope seemed to just ooze his way onto the screen, and it worked for him. You really got the impression that this man is a scheming, controlling man who is out to better his position. He would call on the women of Barchester, even Eleanor and Mary Bold, her friend, however they did not like him calling on them and would laugh at how he was so full of himself. He was almost comical on how "odious" he was.

Poor Bishop Proudie... I recognized Clive Swift from Keeping Up Appearances, and it seems that he's stuck in a similar role. In Keeping Up Appearances, he played the quiet, pushover (it's sounds so cruel, but it's true) husband of Hyacinth Bucket. Here he had practically the same role, except here he was more of a puppet.

Scenery

Mr. Slope (Alan Rickman) talking to Mrs. Bold (Janet Maw).

The scenery was not the best compared to more recent BBC productions. Though The Barchester Chronicles is a BBC production, it was made in the early 80's; the cameras were not as good then as they are today and most of the scenes were usually filmed on a set.. Some of the scenes did, as I have read in other reviews, look more like a play than a miniseries. The outside scenes did not appear to take place on a set, though.

Costumes

The costumes were nice, but there was a concern that I had. In episodes 3 through 7, it looked like Eleanor was wearing the same *Spoiler* mourning dress. *End of Spoiler* For episodes 1 and 2, she had some varying dresses, which were nice, but in episodes 3 through 7, her clothes barely changed at all. She might have had another mourning dress on once or twice, but for the most part, she had the same dress on for most of the miniseries. It could have been that there wasn't that big of a costume budget.

Signora Neroni (Susan Hampshire) did have some nice dresses. They were very elaborate and pretty, although there was one that was a little low cut. I also loved some of the hair decorations that she had. Though I did not really like her character, she did look pretty.

Music
There really isn't too much music to speak of for The Barchester Chronicles. The music that is there is made up of very nice choir music. There was not much music during the episodes excepting the choir scenes and maybe the party scenes, maybe. In short, if you were expecting a full soundtrack, you won't find one here.

Overall: 4/5

Signora Neroni (Susan Hampshire) sitting with guests,some
of which are Mr. Slope and Dr. Arabin (Derek New).

This was very interesting to watch. The first two episodes were a little boring, though: they spent too much time on the legal affairs, so there was a lot of dialogue about law. Once you get past the first two episodes, the rest was humorous and entertaining! There weren't any questionable scenes throughout the whole miniseries, and wouldn't be inappropriate to show in a class. It does come across as more of a play than a movie possibly due to the cameras (this was made in the 80s). Other than that, it is a good quality film that could be watched together as a family.

The Barchester Chronicles is available on DVD and is one of three miniseries in The Anthony Trollope Collection, though you can buy it separately from the collection. It is 385 minutes long, made up of seven 55 minute episodes on two disks.