The Russia House (1990)

Boring

[quote] Directed by Fred Schepisi

Has made some stinkers.

R2 A few, but overall he has made some good films: A Cry in the Dark, Plenty, Roxanne, Six Degrees of Separation, It Runs in the Family, The Eye of the Storm, and The Russia House.

it is okay. well acted and great scenery but boring as hell

R5 How is it boring? Did you read the book?

No love?

[quote] he has made some good films: 'A Cry in the Dark'

This isn't a film. It's a dramatised documentary heavily reliant on other sources. And it stars the American Robot-woman doing a cringe-worthy accent and capturing none of Lindy Chamberlain's innocent vulnerability.

This movie barely registered upon release. Are you saying it’s deserving of some kind of reappraisal? Or are you just high.

Schepisi is a great director.

I saw this in an actual cinema back in the day. Damn it is boring.

I gave this another view when I binged a bunch of le Carré adaptations after he died. Like others here have said, it was pretty boring. It was miscast as well, and Pfeiffer’s Yakov Smirnoff “Wotta country!” accent was kind of embarrassing.

[quote] a bunch of le Carré adaptations after he died. Like others here have said, it was pretty boring.

I have read NONE of "le Carré' but I know that he deliberately wanted to show that espionage is boring while you wait to capture evidence against the foreign power. He said the world of real spies is the opposite of that shown by James Bond

I've sat through the boring "Spy Who Came in from The Cold" with Dick Burton and it was ugly, bleak and boring. I saw bits of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and remember Alec Guinness saying he wanted his character to look like a boring bank clerk who would be ignored. I was asked to see the 'Tinker Tailor' remake with Gary Oldman and it was fragmented and thoroughly uninvolving.

Painfully.dull movie and book.

IMDB says

[quote] The movie was given a happy ending. The novel is more ambiguous, leaving the reader to wonder whether or not Pfeiffer gets out of Russia and Connery goes to Lisbon.

It's a great movie, a masterpiece, even. But you have to be in love, or at least well-acquainted, with the world of Le Carre, otherwise you will miss a lot, because the film is probably too subtle and refuses to make concessions to the viewer by laying out the action in a straightforward way. It's very moving, too - one of Sean Connery's greatest performances. Sadly, the reaction of most audiences was like those in this thread: BORING! It died at the box office and is one of a million reasons for why, over the next 25 years, Hollywood gave up on making adult drama sand now just makes Marvel/DC movies.

R11 I do not think it was miscast. Maybe Pfeiffer, but I thought she did a good job.

Connery, Fox, Scheider, Walsh, and Brandauer were all perfectly cast in my opinion.

R15 I 100% agree with you

I think it is a good movie.

[quote] Fred Schepisi has made some good films:

Adapted from other sources. No original style.

My favorite Schepisi movie is his first feature (1976), "The Devil's Playground," for which he wrote the original, autobiographical screenplay about a young Australian boy at a harsh Catholic seminary. The story is intense but also quite funny in parts, and the cinematography is stunning. It wasn't released in America until 1981, and fizzled after a poor review in the NYT.

Six Degrees of Separation is a great movie.

I like The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith - an interesting movie, hard to watch at times, about the Aborigines.

Just adding this to the thread since it appears there's some bizarre anti-Schepisi troll here (spurned lover?) lol.

I worked on that film as a background artist for a few days. I had forgotten all about it until seeing this post.

R23 any juicy stories? Lot of sexy men in the cast- Connery, Scheider, Fox, Brandauer, etc.

I like it though the best thing about it is the Jerry Goldsmith score. Apparently it was one of his personal favorites.

r3 It Runs in the Family is NOT a good movie.

R3 'The Eye of the Storm' is NOT a good movie.

r3 Plenty is NOT a good movie.

Plenty is a photographed stage play. It has a fractured, non-linear, Pinteresque story played out by a grab-bag of performers who seem oblivious to each other.

Beautiful score by Jerry Goldsmith

A beautifully photographed bore. Connery playing sexy guys at this age was a joke.

I love any movie in which a 32 year old leading lady ends up with a 60 year old leading man!

[quote]because the film is probably too subtle and refuses to make concessions to the viewer by laying out the action in a straightforward way.

No, hon. It wasn't 'too subtle' for us. It was just boring. And had the added ick factor of an elderly actor paired with an actress half his age.

However, the score is absolutely stunning. Some of Goldsmith's finest work.

Fred Schepisi directed this coming off of helping Meryl Streep get a nomination for playing Lindy Chamberlain. He got Tom Stoppard (who was nominated for Brazil) to adapt the John le Carré novel. Sean Connery had won the Oscar a year before this filmed and had a continuing popularity with films like the third Indian Jones film and Michelle Pfeiffer was cresting in her career (having just gotten nominated for Dangerous Liaisons) taking on a role which would require her to do a Russian accent. The movie didn't stir the passions of critics and audiences only helped it make its budget back. The Academy wasn't receptive to the film.

I tried watching it years ago. It was a bit of a snoozer. Pfeiffer made more interesting choices at that time (Married to the Mob, Liaisons, Fabulous Baker Boys, Batman Returns, The Age of Innocence, Witches of Eastwick). She really knew how to pick great directors in her prime. But, she also made questionable choices (turning down Silence of the Lambs, Thelma & Louise, etc).

r26, The Eye of the Storm is a wonderful movie

this is such a great movie -love that there's a thread on this. Also, gaylings, this movie is NOT for you. The romantic pairing of Connery and Pfeiffer makes total sense if you live in the real world and see the kinds of guys women go for all the time. It's not the same movie with, like, harrison ford.

I like his Australian earlier films too. And Plenty

R35 Very true. Plus it was Sean Connery, not some random actor. Roy Scheider was looking good in this movie too.

Great film that is Criterion Collection worthy. This needs a restored re-release.

Klaus Maria Brandauer is hot

r7 = G

I'm another who thinks this movie is very dully.

R41 How so? The scenes are great- Moscow, London, and the Maine Lake House is to die for.

[quote] The Eye of the Storm

It's a stinker.

It has NO emotional relation to the novel. Charlotte Rampling is incapable of evoking emotion and looks ghastly. The tired director hired his wife in a major role. Geoffrey Rush's contribution is wasted unsure if it's a comedy or not.

[quote] The scenes are great- Moscow, London, and the Maine Lake House is to die for.

What do you mean? Are you praising the decor or the fact that the camera crew travelled to three different countries?

[quote] The romantic pairing of Connery and Pfeiffer makes total sense if you live in the real world and see the kinds of guys women go for all the time.

Are you saying middle-aged females go for old guys all the time?

R44 The Maine Lake House was gorgeous

^ Nice Leather sofas.

It was released 5 years too late, it probably would have done better released during the height of the Cold War.

R48 the book was written in 1989 and the film made in 1990. It is about the end of the Cold War.

I know r49, the concept of a story about Soviet spies just seemed old fashioned and overdone to me in 1990.

I'd definitely see this film. I knew that when i read the first few posts by people who obviously have never read le Carre.

R51 Do you like it?

Le Carré is actually a difficult, subtle writer. His books aren’t easy, he constantly uses the concept of in media res, where you are thrown in the middle of the action without understanding what is going on until some time later on the reading. His endings are sometimes too subtle. Inevitably, this is usually reproduced in the movie adaptations and it takes a good screenwriter and director to work around it- it sometimes works, as in The Constant Gardner, Tinker Tailor and I would add The Night Manager, but generally people consider these movies boring. The Russia House is a good example of this.

R53 Aaron Sorkin would be a great writer for Le Carre

I didn't know it was written by Stoppard!

I just finished rewatching Rosencrantz & G, which rekindled my appreciation of him. I'll watch it this week, I think.

R55 tell us your thoughts!

James Fox can always be counted upon.

James Fox can always be counted upon to play a middle-aged fuddy-duddy government bureaucrat with no private life.

R58 I disagree. He is always upper class and well put together.

[quote] well put together.

Was does that mean? He hasn't gone nude or shirtless since 1967.

R60 no, but he is always well groomed, ironed, buttoned down, and a quintessential old school Englishman

John le Carré stories deal with the sad, the boring, and the bureaccratic.

Yet people have use the word 'great' 13 times in this thread. The adjective "great" is not appropriate to describe the John le Carre' milieu.

R62 in this case, they mean great story, great cinematography, great acting, etc.

This movie has flaws, but can you name a bad performance in this? Michelle Pfeiffer is probably the weakest link. Granted, she is working alongside Connery, Scheider, Fox, Mahoney, Walsh, and Brandauer who always bring in great performances.

Thanks, OP.

I don't know why I've avoided "The Russia House." Maybe because of the lack of Alec Guinness.

And as everyone knows, Connery can't act.

So he doesn't ruin it?

Connery was sex on a stick but he was NEVER a thespian.

R64 no Connery fits in well here

Connery fits into the world of John le Carré as well as the late Donald Wolfit in an Eminem and Snoop Dogg video.

R67 I would actually like to see that.

This is just another thread DLer's will find anything to bitch at

I remember when this came out but I never saw it. I like le Carre and the Shepisi movies I've seen so I'll watch this.

Again, Le Carré was a difficult writer. His adaptations have to be seriously deconstructed in order to work. The Russia House, for all its good casting, followed the easy way out and ended up being a boring movie, blame the screenwriters/director, not the actors.

Indeed. I struggled with the ending of The Honourable Schoolboy.

The best thing Stoppard did was to ditch Palfrey, the all-knowing Smiley-ish character who narrates much of the novel. I don't know why he changed the scientist's cover name from Goethe to Dante.

Thank you for beginning this to our attention OP. I enjoy films based on John le Carre almost as much as reading his books.

I think he has been overlooked for the literature Nobel because he is categorised as a writer of thrillers. He is so much more.