Megamind To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

mgl-92037 I agree with the other reviewers that Vanessa Redgrave's performance is the highlight of the film. She plays Jean so perfectly that you can imagine that they plucked the character out of real life and simply filmed her in her natural environs. You won't find any performance by an American star---and I include De Niro, Pacino and the other top Americans of the last 50 years---which is as natural, unaffected and moving at Redgrave's. The other real delight is watching Joely Richardson play the young Jean. She looks like her mother, and she foreshadows the later development of Jean perfectly. The actor who plays Jim is perfect in that small role: handsome, not too bright, very honest and devoted. The next great performance is in the character of John Morgan, perfectly portrayed as a young man who is mentally ill, but not to the extent this is noticed, or dealt with at school. He is intelligent, but unable to relate to people as more than objects, or objectified ideals. As a character, he is creepy in just the right degree---subtly, so that the pieces only fit together later.I'm not sure how to interpret the events which unfold or are revealed in the last 20 minutes of the film, but however you look at it, this is a depressing, very British outlook on middle age. A kind of, yes life is really awful, but we're here and the worst is behind us. In mood and final resolution, as well as in having a teacher as the central character, this movie has echoes of Michael Redgrave's very fine movie, The Browning Version. Finally, I don't see any significance to politics in this movie. The film is a story of character development and revelation. Don't watch this movie if you are easily bored, or easily depressed, for that matter. Watch it if you want to see some really fine acting, and want to be provoked a bit.

Rodrigo Amaro "Wetherby" is an intriguing wake up call to each one of us to pay more attention to life and the events surrounding it, before it gets too late and we're forced to face the facts, to see the importance people have in our lives in its quietest and small moments even though we think they're not important or they can't affect us. Because they can and life has its ways of showing how. What David Hare is saying here is that the things that matter and will change you will happen when you're distracted or least expecting it. With luck, you'll know how to react.In the suburb of Wetherby a casual dinner took place having as participants some upper class members, an enjoyable evening in the house of teacher Jean Travers (Vanessa Redgrave). The following day one of the guests, the mysterious John Morgan (Tim McInnerny) returns there, exposes that he wasn't known of any of the attendees - to Jean's surprise who thinks this was impossible - and then he kills himself in front of her. Such fact triggers down alternate ways: a police detective (Stuart Wilson) becomes obsessed with this strange case and decides to get some clues on why Morgan acted this way; Karen, a colleague of Morgan (Suzanne Hamilton) visits Jean informing her about the very few she knew about the young man, but she's just mysterious as he was, doesn't reveal much about herself; a minor impact on the lives of Mrs. Travers friends (Ian Holm, Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson); and Jean remembrances of her past with her involvement with a soldier, a life changing experience. The latter, although it doesn't seem and strangely played out to confuse audiences, is related with the suicide despite decades apart. But this in a psychological way and this movie is perfect when it comes to those terms.The good points: pay attention to the details and you'll love how most of it was carefully constructed but be warned, there's no easy answers and sometimes there's no answers at all, we're left to take our own conclusions about the character's actions. Redgrave and Wilson were excellent, very insightful and very believable when it comes to present a genuine state of shock, his trying to find reasonable explanations and her after seeing the tragedy (although the movie downplayed and hid her reaction after the fact, awkwardly cutting to her past without further notice). The veteran actors in the supporting roles are outstanding, creating memorable moments. The young McInnerny was an on/off kind of acting. I believed him in almost everything he did, he sure causes an impression on you with this intelligent, disturbed, apparently peaceful guy but in some scenes he was too weird, almost in a laughable way. It's a puzzling and provocative study on the human perceptions and why they're more important to some (John Morgan) than to others (almost all the other characters).The bad points: this was close in being a great work but so close that is a little saddening to present the following upsetting remarks. I can't complain about the story and the deep connections between different characters, times and space we have to form to understand the whole, however I felt Hare shouldn't be the one to direct this or at least he should tone down a little easier on the technical aspects. A more technical director would benefit substantially from a script like this. The fore-mentioned transition between events is an example on how to not present a story. The time leap between the two events was really odd to see, it looked like seeing another film strangely cut to later get back where it stopped, and even experienced viewers will find this problematic. Of course, not as much as the loud and melodramatic soundtrack which is completely misplaced and creates feelings and sensations that aren't there. For both cases, it was all a matter of editing problem, the way things are put together doesn't work for too long. The girl who played Karen was awful, shouting and overreacting at all times. The screenplay doesn't make of her a sympathetic character, often making her an enigma that doesn't add much to the mystery to be solved. Those with patience, time and eyes to see will enjoy it to the maximum and even forgive its problems. This isn't hollow, this isn't pretentious, it's just hides its points very deep like a treasure to be sought. The reward will come for those who work and think a little harder. 9/10

blackjakko The cover looks very promising. Unfortunately it fails to deliver despite having an exceptional cast. Incredibly boring and annoying. Had to stop watching it half way through, and I'm a die hard film fan. I am willing to give movies more than a decent chance to prove themselves. Why it fails? the deadly slow pace, the meandering/chopping back and forth between the two plots. The feeling that the movie is going nowhere and will leave you wondering why you bothered. Truly Vanessa Redgrave is always a good bet which is why I chose it, together with the fact that her daughter (Joely Richardson)is in it spurred me on. The premise is a good one, but the lack of momentum is excruciating. Ian Holm, Tom Wilkinson, Judi Dench, are all playing their roles adequately. What a shame.

trpdean I've always loved this movie deeply. I just watched it again for perhaps the sixth or seventh time. I fully agree with the Japanese reviewer that the mention of Nixon is in sympathy, not ridicule. His yearning to be loved by another, is very much meant as a parallel to the young and older Redgrave character - as well as to the young man at the dinner party.David Hare has a wonderful scene here that is very similar to the very end of Plenty - when we see Joely Richardson writing in her diary in 1947 or so (think of Plenty's flashback to Meryl Streep in 1944 or 1945 speaking to the French farmer). The scenes might be full of bathos - but gee, I was overwhelmed both times. This movie has much in common with other Hare ventures - movies like Strapless and Plenty, plays like Skylight and "Amy's View". Hare's deep sympathies are with the romantic, the compassionate, the sensitive, the foolhardy, the collective-minded and the lost. He is antipathetic toward the self-sufficient, the ambitious, the laconic, the individualistic, the successful. I only partly share his sympathy and his antipathy but he makes me appreciate his attitudes through dramas he creates with real living characters. Hare is sentimental in a nostalgic way, and can write wonderfully vivid, intelligent and lost protagonists. I think him a far more intelligent and better dramatist than such left-wingers as Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. Many of us will see much of ourselves in his protagonists' loneliness, our wonder at mistaken hopes from our past, and sense of our own frailties and faults as we grow older.Others speak of similarities to Pinter - I don't see them. Hare is more essentially romantic - even if he doesn't want to be - and I'd place him more with a Jacques Demy than with a Pinter-Mamet and their cold keen patterns of speech and behavior - though granted, he's more concerned with social and political background than Demy.This is essentially a sad movie about one who was once happy - and her wonder and self-realization about another sadder than she. This movie also started me off on two decades of strongly favoring Joely Richardson in any role - as I had always loved Ian Holm and Vanessa Redgrave. (I realized recently that among my several dozen favorite movies since the mid-1960s, about one quarter seem to have Ian Holm in them!). If you like movies like Sunday Bloody Sunday, Butley, Plenty, A Kind of Loving, Quartermaine's Terms - and I do - you'll love Wetherby. I love this movie.