The Ploughman's Lunch
Encyclopedia
1983 in film
-Events:*February 11 - The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together opens in New York*May 25 - Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released. Like the previous films, it goes on to become the top grossing picture of...
film written by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....
and directed by Richard Eyre
Richard Eyre
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...
which featuring Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
, Tim Curry
Tim Curry
Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....
and Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...
.
The film looks at the media world in Margaret Thatcher's
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
during the time of the Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
. It was a part of Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's "Film on Four" strand, enjoying a successful and critically lauded theatrical release prior to its television screenings.
Plot
James Penfield (Pryce) is an ambitious London-based BBC radio reporter, from humble origins but Oxford-educated. He is commissioned to write a book on the Suez Crisis and undertakes this commission, claiming not to be a socialist, at the same time as the Falklands War is starting to dominate the British media.This, however, is just a backdrop to his attraction towards Susan Barrington (Charlie Dore
Charlie Dore
Charlie Dore is an English singer-songwriter and actress.-Career:Although best known as one of the UK's most respected singer-songwriters, Dore has a multi-faceted career that includes acting in film, TV and radio, comedy-improvisation and composition for film and TV...
), an upper class, rather snooty TV journalist, to whom he is introduced through his close Oxford friend and fellow TV journalist, Jeremy Hancock (Curry). Although he is persistent, he cannot get further than a late night kiss from her and so Jeremy suggests that he contact her mother, a prominent left-wing historian Ann Barrington (Harris) living in Norfolk, and married to advertising film director Matthew Fox (Frank Finlay
Frank Finlay
Francis Finlay, CBE is an English stage, film and television actor.-Personal life:Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay, a butcher. A devout Catholic, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He was educated at St...
). It transpires that Ann wrote an article on the Suez Crisis
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, Suez War was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on 29 October 1956. Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel,...
on its tenth anniversary, and James wants to seduce the daughter by befriending the mother.
James soon finds himself spending more time with the mother than her daughter. Claiming to be a socialist, they have several long discussions and also take long walks on the Norfolk broads. Meanwhile, his mother is dying, and having earlier said to Susan that both his parents are dead, he is forced to identify her only as a relative when his father manages to contact him while he is with Ann. Returning to London, he is forced to ask for help from members of a women's peace camp for a jack after suffering a puncture. Initially mistaken for another BBC man, he shows some feigned sympathy towards the group protesting the use of force outside a Norfolk airbase. Visiting Norfolk again a week later with an uninterested Susan, James walks alone with Ann Barrington who kisses him and, later, enters his bedroom and has sex with him.
Caught up in this love triangle, James returns to his work in London. Over a beer and pub ploughman's lunch
Ploughman's lunch
A ploughman's lunch is a cold snack or meal originating in the United Kingdom, served in pubs, sometimes eaten in a sandwich form, composed of cheese ; often cooked ham slices, pickle , apples, pickled onions, salad leaves, bread...
with Matthew Fox, Fox consents to James making love to his wife, given that they have slept in separate beds for the last three years. However, James refuses to take any calls from the mother when she attempts to contact him at the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. He finally gets another Oxford friend and up and coming young poet to make a call to her ending the relationship, while he sits idly by reading advertisements in Exchange and Mart
Newsquest
Newsquest is the third largest publisher of regional and local newspapers in the United Kingdom with 300 titles in its portfolio. Newsquest is based in Weybridge, Surrey and employs a total of more than 5,500 people across the UK...
.
James, Jeremy and Susan have all been given the task of covering the Conservative Party conference so they travel down to Brighton together in James' Jaguar
Jaguar
The jaguar is a big cat, a feline in the Panthera genus, and is the only Panthera species found in the Americas. The jaguar is the third-largest feline after the tiger and the lion, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. The jaguar's present range extends from Southern United States and Mexico...
. It is at the start of the conference that James first starts to get an inkling of something going on between the other two and directly asks Jeremy if he is up to something. Later, during the conference, he attempts to talk to Susan but she brushes him off, and he then sees them caressing each other, having obviously returned from their hotel room. The Conference finishes with Thatcher's closing address as she rouses popular support following the successfully resolved Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
and afterwards James confronts his friend in The Brighton Centre
The Brighton Centre
The Brighton Centre is a conference centre located in Brighton, England. The capacity of the main hall for conferences is 4,500 people and 5,100 for standing concerts.It also has smaller rooms for weddings, banquets etc....
conference hall, calling him a shit for having betrayed him. However, he in turn is told by Jeremy that he has known Susan for fifteen years and that they are 'old allies'.
The film ends with James having a conversation with his publisher about the success of his first book. The closing scene is of James attending his mother's funeral, standing grim-faced and aloof at his father's side.
Main characters
- James Penfield - Jonathan Pryce
- Jeremy Hancock - Tim Curry
- Susan Barrington - Charlie Dore
- Ann Barrington - Rosemary Harris
- Matthew Fox - Frank Finlay
- Lecturer - Bill Patterson
- Newsreader - David LyonDavid Lyon (actor)David Lyon is a British stage, television, and film actor.Since 1976, Lyon has performed regularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company. With them he has appeared in plays which include: Much Ado About Nothing, King John, Henry VI, The Winter's Tale, Troilus and Cressida, The Taming of the Shrew,...
- Mr Penfield - Nat Jackley
Film production
- Director - Richard Eyre
- Producer - Simon RelphSimon RelphSimon Relph is a British assistant film director and producer. He is the former chairman of the BAFTA Foundation Trustees. He was a member of the jury at the 41st Berlin International Film Festival.-Selected filmography:* Reds...
, Ann Scott - Screenplay - Ian McEwan
- Editor - David Martin
- Camera - Clive Tickner
- Music - Dominic Muldowney
Reception
In The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, film critic Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...
wrote, "James Penfield, the journalist who glowers at the center of the fine new English film 'The Ploughman's Lunch,' is a fascinating variation on all of the angry, low-born young men who populated British novels and plays in the late 1950's and 60's. Although he denies it, he is angry. At one point he says: 'You do everything right and you feel nothing. Either way.' His problem is that he feels everything all too acutely, but it doesn't make him a better person, only more devious. James Penfield is Jimmy Porter of 'Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger is a John Osborne play—made into films in 1959, 1980, and 1989 -- about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...
' updated to the 1980's, specifically to London during the 1982 Falkland war and the Tory leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. 'The Ploughman's Lunch,' the first theatrical film to be written by Ian McEwan and directed by Richard Eyre, is a witty, bitter tale of duplicity and opportunism in both private and public life...This is tricky stuff, but 'The Ploughman's Lunch' blends fact with fiction with astonishing success." The Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
said of the work, "This is undoubtedly the most politically aware film produced in Britain since the war," adding that its "crab-like pattern traverses a huge area of British social and political life, including the media, the LSE
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
students, the fashionable publishers - and it ends up at the justified triumphalism being celebrated by Margaret Thatcher at the Tory Party conference, where cameras smuggled into that event allowed the film actors to mingle with the political supremos of the day. No subsequent film catches so well the look and lifestyle of the early Eighties."