John Bett
A young newspaper writer returns to her hometown in the English countryside, where her childhood home is being prepped for sale.
In his Scottish New Town home, gangling Gregory and his schoolfriends are starting to find out about girls. He fancies Dorothy, not least because she has got into the football team – and is a better player than him. He finally asks her out, but it is obviously the females in control of matters here, and that very much includes Gregory’s younger sister.
This multiple-Oscar-winning film by Roman Polanski is an exquisite, richly layered adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. A strong-willed peasant girl (Nastassja Kinski, in a gorgeous breakthrough) is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line. This fateful visit commences an epic narrative of sex, class, betrayal, and revenge, which Polanski unfolds with deliberation and finesse. With its earthy visual textures, achieved by two world-class cinematographers—Geoffrey Unsworth (Cabaret) and Ghislain Cloquet (Au hasard Balthazar)—Tess is a work of great pastoral beauty as well as vivid storytelling.
