Movie: As Time Goes By

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

You Must Remember This

Plot Overview

A second lieutenant on leave in 1953 picks up a pretty nurse in an English garden. They go on walks, have coffee, and fool around until he gets deployed to Korea. A snafu in the mail causes them to lose track of each other, which might be just as well, because her parents would not have approved of an unknown soldier, and he was not in a position to support a bride anyway.

After Lionel Hard­castle (Geof­frey Palmer) com­pletes his Korean tour, he becomes a bwana in Kenya, a man-about-town in England, and an aspiring writer wanting a secretary. Hospital nurse Jean Par­get­ter (Judi Dench) gets married then loses her husband David. She forms her own secre­tarial pool agency and employs her daughter Judith (Moira Brooker) who while “on the rebound” accepts a concert date with the old charmer Lionel. The two elders recognize each other when he swings by the office to pick her up.

The two erst­while lovers are coy with each other as they attempt to negotiate the tricky terrain of starting over after a twenty-eight year hiatus. Their British repartee keeps the laugh track engaged, and Jean & her girl­friends make cozy girl-talk about it. Future flash­backs show Jean and Lionel trying to scope out Jean's daughter Judith and her employee Sandy trotting out their suitors in front of them. Linguistics Professor Deborah Tannen, PhD, might include it as one of her:

many examples of people piling on details in conversation involv[ing] old people. This may be because old people often want more involvement with young people than young people want with them, or because old people frequently cannot hear well, so they tell detailed stories to maintain inter­action. Old people are also more inclined to reminisce about the past, conse­quently telling stories that are likely to include details. ¶It is a tenet of contem­porary American psychology that mental health requires psycho­logical separation from one's parents. One way of resisting over­involve­ment, for some people at least, is resisting telling details (116–7).

Ideology

King Solomon has a (Proverb 30:20) “Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.” It was concocted in a day when virtually every­one got married, and at a young age, so any sexual mischief would ordinarily involve at least one married. Today it has broader application. The idea is that a loose woman “eateth,” has a man inside her who is not her husband, then “wipeth her mouth,” cleans up the external appearance, “and saith, I have done no wickedness.”

Lionel & Jean in their early perambu­lations, stumbled upon an out-of-the-way B&B, registered for appearance sake under the assumed name of Mr. & Mrs. Ambrose Smith, and lost their virginity up in room 8. In fact Lionel plied her with twenty-eight [?!] cups of coffee before he was sure she was ready. And later in answer to his biographer's “licentious” question of how she looked to him when he first entered the room, he said he didn't see her because she was in the bathroom. Little wonder.

It took them twenty-eight years to meet again, and another nine for courting before he married her and made an honest woman out of her. Her daughter Judith, on the other hand, adamantly refused advances from her beau Alistair (Philip Bretherton) to live together before they were wed. Whether mother and daughter exemplified the same degree of innocence, I'll leave to the audience to decide. I'll just say better late than never. That it is the rare soldier who is so committed to his conquest(s) is indicated by her parents' negative reaction to their tryst.

Production Values

“” (BBC video 2002) stars Judi Dench, Geoffrey Palmer and Moira Brooker. The two leads had excellent chemistry together, and Brooker was a knockout as Jean's daughter. The rest of the (small) cast did just fine.

It's rated TV–PG. The sets were confined, it being the characters that carried the story. There were no frills. These Brits brew both coffee & tea. It's told from the stand­point of an elderly couple reminiscing about their past that in turn recalls an earlier past that we don't actually see except for two still snap­shots. Time fades occur with­out warning. We can orient our­selves time-wise by the growing bald spot and receding hairline of Lionel, and by the graying and ultimately whitening of Jean's hair. Also the hair­styles of female fixtures change with the fashions. Dialogue is replete with pithy quips accompanied by a laugh track. The movie is so well done as not to need embellishments. Runtime is 1 hour.

Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation

I'd call this an old person's movie likely to bore a younger generation but captivate the old folk. It was excellently crafted but bare bones.

Movie Ratings

Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Special effects: Wake up and smell the 1990s technology. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.

Works Cited

Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.

Tannen, Deborah. You Just Don't Understand. Copyright © 1990 by Deborah Tannen. New York: William Morrow and Company. Print.