Juliet Stevenson Movies
Ranked among Great Britain's most esteemed stage actresses, Juliet Stevenson also occasionally lends her talent to film and television productions. In film, she received the most acclaim for Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991). A graduate of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she first made waves in classical theater in the early '80s. She also occasionally worked in more modern productions, such as Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden, for which Stevenson originated the role of the vengeful Paulina. In 1987, Stevenson entered television in the British/American film Helix/The Race for the Double Helix (1987). She followed this up with several feature films, making her American debut co-starring with Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma (1996). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
A hypocritical politician touting family values faces the wrath of his vengeful wife when it's revealed that he has been carrying on a torrid extramarital affair in British filmmaker Graham Theakston's award-winning PBS drama. Tory powerhouse and family-value proponent Duncan Matlock (Trevor Eve) is on the political fast track until the tabloids catch him in a compromising position with a young escort. As the media locks on to the sordid controversy and Duncan's loyal wife Flora's (Juliet Stevenson) cool façade begins to melt down, the revelation of telephone tapes disclosing the true extent of the affair leaves her reeling. Now determined to strike back at her philandering husband and seek revenge by any means necessary, Duncan's only ally is about to become his worst enemy. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliet Stevenson, Trevor Eve, (more)
The Left Bank of Paris is a notorious bohemian hot-spot where some of the world's greatest artists and intellectuals found a haven in which to freely express themselves. Though traditional chronicles have focused on the illustrious men who lived there, this British documentary looks at some of the women who lived there including Gertrude Stein and her lover Alice B. Toklas, publishers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, painter Romaine Brooks, and Natalie Barney. Many of their stories are told with archival film clips coupled with modern interviews. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
David Hare adapted his play about the tensions simmering within a British family, which erupt with the death of their patriarch. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliet Stevenson, Joanne Whalley, (more)
- 1993
Franz Kafka's classic tale of Josef K., a bank clerk who is placed on trial for an unnamed, unknowable crime, is given a faithful, if not overly literal, treatment in this drama. Knowing only that he has been charged, Josef naturally sets out to defend himself, but soon finds himself deeply mired in a battle against an incomprehensible government bureaucracy. Following Orson Welles's adaptation of the book by some three decades, director David Jones chooses to avoid the earlier film's expressionistic approach. Instead, he sets Josef's travails against a realistic background that specifically recalls Eastern Europe during the early 20th century, the time of the book's writing. Similarly, the screenplay by famed British playwright Harold Pinter, whose own darkly absurd vision owes much to Kafka, hews closely to the original text. This faithful approach helps ground the story in historical reality, and allows for a good use of brooding Prague locations. However, many critics have found this approach less effective than the low-budget abstraction of Welles' version, which is more successful at highlighting the universality and symbolic nature of the tale. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kyle MacLachlan, Anthony Hopkins, (more)
Pianist Nina (Juliet Stevenson) and cellist Jamie (Alan Rickman) played together and loved together. When they weren't making music with each other, they made love. It was an idyllic romantic and musical partnership, and when Jamie dies, Nina takes it very hard. The condolences of friends and relatives don't help much when everything in the apartment they shared reminds her of him. She's a real basket case, and can barely get on with her life. One day, while plunking dejectedly on the piano, Nina looks up to discover Jamie, in ghostly form, lively as ever and just as loving. With a few new wrinkles (such as parties which include Jamie's newfound ghost friends), they resume living their relationship almost as before. Nina's friends are puzzled at her change from suicidal despondency to giddy cheefulness, but Jamie has pledged Nina to secrecy about their renewed relationship. For that reason, she cannot find any good excuses for not responding to the romantic advances of a living man, Mark (Michael Maloney). Before long, she will have to choose between the two of them. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, (more)
- 1990
March is set in what we hope is the distant future. Global warming has caused the more temperate regions of the earth to become uninhabitable. A group of several thousand Africans migrate across the dried-up oceans to Europe and England. This so-called promised land is overpopulated already, sparking severe racial and nationalistic tensions. Juliet Stevenson heads the cast of March, which was originally produced for British television, then aired in the U.S. over the A&E cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1990
Donald Sumpter stars in this heavy-breathing British TV drama as Frank, a millionaire rock promoter. Saddled with a miserable domestic life, Frank enters into a torrid affair with the wife of a vicar. Jeremy Clyde, formerly of the rock group Chad and Jeremy, plays a key supporting role. Aimee was telecast by the BBC in 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1988
- R
Peter Greenaway wrote and directed this typically surreal and iconoclastic black comedy. Three generations of women who share the same name -- 63-year-old Cissie Colpitts (Joan Plowright), her daughter Cissie Colpitts II (Juliet Stevenson), and granddaughter Cissie Colpitts III (Joely Richardson) -- have all discovered the same way of dealing with their marital problems. The senior Cissie has drowned her husband Jake (Bryan Pringle) in the bathtub, her daughter sent her spouse Hardy (Trevor Cooper) to a watery grave in the ocean, and the youngest Cissie sent her husband Bellamy (David Morrissey) down in a swimming pool. Needless to say, local coroner Henry Madgett (Barnard Hill) has some questions about this sudden rash of drownings among the Colpitts husbands, and again all three women respond in the same way: they promise to sleep with Henry in exchange for recording the deaths as accidental (though none of the Cissies make good on this promise). When the local gossip mill begins working overtime about this sudden rash of water-related deaths, Henry's teenage son Smut (Jason Edwards) comes to the aid of the Cissies and organizes a tug-of-war, with he and the Colpitts women on one side and the doubting townspeople on the other (and, of course, a river in the middle). Along the way, Greenaway often stops to contemplate his obsessions with literature, astronomy, and numbers. Drowning by Numbers was released in Europe in 1988, but didn't find its way to American screens until 1991, following the success of Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bernard Hill, Joan Plowright, (more)
- 1986
This British made-for-television movie tells the story of the 1950s competition to unlock the mystery behind DNA, and the personal and political tribulations that accompanied the endeavor. Jeff Goldblum stars as American scientist Jim Watson, and Tim Pigott-Smith is Britain's Francis Crick. Together, the non-traditional scientists raced to find the structure of the DNA molecule before their contemporaries did the same. The film was based on the book of the same name by James Watson. ~ Bernadette McCallion, All Movie Guide
