- Actors: Robert Shaw, Sarah Miles, Peter Egan, Caroline Mortimer, Elizabeth Sellars
- Directors: Alan Bridges
- Format: PAL, Colour, Full Screen
- Language English
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3 - 1.33:1
- Classification: PG
- Studio: RCA Columbia
- Run Time: 104 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B000K231EK
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 29,725 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Product Description
Synopsis
An insightful examination of class barriers in England in the 1920s, following the romance between a wealthy young widow and her hired chauffeur. While recovering from a nervous breakdown, she starts a love affair with the chauffeur, but after she begins to recover her mental stability, the barriers rise once again.
Product Description
This remarkable British film won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Sarah Miles stars as an upper class woman whose husband has been killed in WW1. Robert Shaw plays her chauffeur an outwardly calm but inwardly complex man. Based on the novel by L.P. Hartley.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This little gem is an absolute must for anyone who is interested in the hidden twists and turns of the human psyche. Based on the novel by L. P. Hartley, it explores the relationship between the troubled minds of an astrocratic young lady and her chauffer. She is suffering, retrospectively from depressive self-criticism after the recent death of her elderly husband, whom she felt she had neglected during his life, while her chauffer is in denial of all emotions, which he sees as weaknesses to surviving in an unjust world. Although the film deviates significantly from the book, in its own way it evokes more poignantly, a time just after the First World War when class image and values were a serious impediment to any real human understanding. Set against a backdrop of gloomy country houses and autumnal landscapes, the acting by the principle protagonists, Sarah Hiles and Robert Shaw, is faltless. Their tortured metamorphosis leaves one with the profound conviction that hypocracy and denial were, and probably still are, the greatest impediments to genuine communication between people from all walks of life.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Released from a rest home after recovering from a nervous breakdown following the death of her husband, a young aristocratic widow (Sarah Miles) is pulled out of her grief by the friendship of her chauffeur (Robert Shaw). But when the chauffeur falls in love with her and crosses class lines, tragedy is inevitable. The film shares a similar theme with THE GO-BETWEEN, another film which dealt with a romance that crossed class lines between a young woman of the aristocracy and a tenant farmer that had disastrous results. Perhaps it's not surprising since both films are based on novels by L.P. Hartley. But THE HIRELING comes across as a stronger indictment of the British class system. Shaw, in quite possibly his greatest film performance, gives a moving performance as a lonely ex-military man who knows his place in the class system but dares to cross it. Miles gives a delicate, nuanced performance as the frail, unsure widow who eventually recovers her confidence. Winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1973 Cannes film festival Directed by Alan Bridges (RETURN OF THE SOLDIER). The subtle but powerful underscore is by Marc Wilkinson. With Peter Egan and Elizabeth Sellars.
The Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD via Great Britain is a fine anamorphic wide screen (1.85) transfer with optional subitles.
The Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD via Great Britain is a fine anamorphic wide screen (1.85) transfer with optional subitles.
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