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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 63601
Released: March 14, 2000 |
| Our Price: $5.76 |
| Used Price: $2.80 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Screen favorite Stephen Rea (MICHAEL COLLINS, THE CRYING GAME) stars in this sexy, humorous story about a young woman's discovery of life and love in the arms of an older man! Born into an affluent family of overachievers, awkward young Harper Sloane (Sarah Polley -- eXistenZ, Go!) was always the odd one out ... until a brilliant photographer, Connie Fitzpatrick (Rea), focuses his attention on her! Now he's about to show her a world of possibilities she'd never imagined! But even as Connie begins to guide Harper out of her shell, it's ultimately up to Harper alone to show her disapproving mother ... and the whole world ... her true potential! Also featuring Gina Gershon (THE INSIDER, FACE/OFF) -- you'll be charmed by the acclaimed performances in this warm, award-winning motion picture!
Description of Guinevere:
Sarah Polley has built a reputation on her eerie calm--most of her performances seem dominated by an icy, implacable stare. That's why her performance in Guinevere is such a revelation. Polley plays Harper, a young woman from a wealthy but troubled family who's on the verge of a nervous breakdown. At her older sister's wedding, she meets Connie (Stephen Rea), a photographer as old as her parents, with whom she begins an affair. Their relationship--partly an education in the arts, partly an escape from the repression of her family--takes a variety of twists and turns, none of them predictable, all of them questionable, all of them genuine. The movie is clear-eyed about the situation: Connie isn't idealized, and is in many ways a creepy older man, neurotic and self-aggrandizing, but he also offers a kind of emotional support that Harper has never had. Whenever the movie seems to be turning into some bohemian fantasy, something happens that returns it to earth, sometimes with an uncomfortable jolt. It's unsettling, insightful, charming, scary, absurd, and all too real. All the performances are excellent--Jean Smart, as Harper's mother, is smart and cuttingly bitter; Rea is by turns sweet and manipulative, honest and self-deluded. But above all, Polley displays a combination of vulnerability and steely determination that makes Guinevere utterly compelling. The ending is curious--I still haven't made up my mind about it. But for a movie as committed to the contradictions of human relationships as this one, there's nothing wrong with that. --Bret Fetzer
Guinevere Reviews:
Worth watching 
2008-08-31 - I had the unbelievable good fortune to stumble upon Guinevere, starring Sarah Polley and Stephen Rea, this week. I really enjoyed this movie.
Polley plays Harper, a young, insecure woman on the brink of attending Harvard Law School. At her sister's wedding, she meets Connie Fitzpatrick, an aging wedding photographer. He strikes up an easy rapport with her, guessing quickly that she's not cut out for law school and flattering her with a compliment or two. Connie also slyly accommodates her request not to be photographed in the traditional wedding shots, but he surprises her with a beautiful portrait that he took (featuring only her) in an unguarded moment. When Harper visits Connie to thank him for the portrait, he invites her to stick around with him and learn about . . . art.
Before she knows it, Harper is chucking the idea of law school and moving in with her new lover. The two seem oddly happy together, though Harper's own low self-esteem and Connie's need for adulation are more than a little self-destructive. Harper soon discovers that she's one in a string of Connie's many "pupils" - all young, all insecure, all taken in by his talk of art and his Irish accent. Connie has fed them all the same lines, tried to inspire all of them to create art, called them all his "Guinevere." Despite that, however, Harper decides Connie's a better bet than her own dysfunctional family of backbiting lawyers. As the viewer knows from the start, Connie and Harper must eventually have a sad parting.
The film comes full circle four years later, when news that Connie has been stricken with illness reaches his former loves. The women all gather (without malice, no less) to say goodbye, and, strangely enough, most of them have gone on to become accomplished artists - painters, photographers, etc.
I thought this movie was very interesting and very well-done. The characters are not always likable - Harper, jealous of her older sister's close relationship with her father, runs to Connie as a substitute; Connie, though an excellent photographer, is also an old lech with too much of a taste for girl-flesh; Harper's family is made out to be an intelligent but thoroughly hatable group whose main characterization is their vocation - law.
Rea and Polley hold the film deftly in ther capable hands, and their performances are wonderful. I'm beginning to really love Polley. I thought she was stunning in My Life Without Me and I LOVED her in The Weight of Water. Jean Smart provides a biting turn as Harper's mother.
Though there is a little nudity, some sexual content, and plenty of profanity in this one, I thought it was very much worth watching.
A Must See If Crushing On Sarah Polley
2007-08-29 - Sarah Polley fans, especially ones going all the way back to "Ramona", are generally big-time "Guinevere" (1999) fans simply because it is the film in which she peaked physically. And Director Audrey Wells picked up on this during casting, seeing in Polley (at that time of her life) someone physically perfect to play her heroine Harper Sloane. Wells needed a young woman who simply glowed in front of the camera, whose face looked better "without" make-up, and who projected both innocence and restlessness. With Polley she also got a bonus, one of the most talented actresses of her generation.
In this sense Wells resembles Alfred Hitchcock, a director with an uncanny ability to identify actresses at the one moment of their lives when they are physically perfect for a particular role. Sylvia Sidney in "Sabotage", Nova Pilbeam in "Young and Innocent", and Joan Fontaine in "Rebecca" come to mind.
Wells, who also wrote ''The Truth About Cats and Dogs'', captures that moment in some young women's lives (yes, the film could be considered a feminist statement) when they are able to break free of expectations and programming. The Harper Sloane character seems so authentic and the portrayal so lacking in glib cynicism that it most likely has a lot of autobiographical elements.
Harper is tracking along toward Harvard Law School when she meets Cornelius Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea), a middle-aged Irish artist who has been hired to photograph her sister's wedding. His well-practiced seduction technique and irreverent world-view causes a major attitude adjustment and she abandons her career track to become his protégé and lover.
The story is told from Harper's point of view and the viewer soon learns along with her that this is not the traditional "Pygmalion" scenario. While not exactly a rogue and a roué, "Connie" is a compulsive Henry Higgins who has repeatedly played this game with repressed young women. He goes into these relationships with a five-year time limit.
Consistent with the POV factor, Harper's story is told with intelligence and compassion, with a lot of emphasis on the fragility of a first love and the pain of a trust betrayed. The film's feminist slant is revealed not so much by what is explicitly shown but by its failure to bring any dimensionality to Connie's character. No clues are provided to explain his aversion to a long-term commitment, Harper discovers that his promises are empty ones but she never learns the roots of his insecurities.
Although Polley's best scenes are those with Carrie Preston, who plays her best friend and confidante; the most entertaining scenes are those with her mother (Jean Smart), an unstated version of Susan's mother on "Seinfeld". The dysfunctional nature of Harper's family and her mother's unfulfilled life are slowly and somewhat comically revealed, but the bottom line is that her mother is sincerely trying to shield her daughter from mistakes.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Heart-breakingly Real 
2005-07-13 - I'd highly recommend this film to anyone, but especially to any
female artist, musician, actor who has come of age. This isn't
so much about a May-December romance: it is about the student/mentor bond which can be incredibly strong and intense,
and an aging artist who through Harper, is trying to hold onto
his past youth and the artistic potential he once had.
This could have been such a sappy movie, but the acting and writing kept that from happening. I agree with another reviewer - it was NOT predictable, and the acting was so real.
Sarah Polley is great, but Stephen Rea absolutely broke my heart.
These characters were not romanticized: they were multi-dimentional, human. There was good and not so good about them.
Connie Fitzgerald did manipulate and seduce Harper, but it was also clear that he really loved her. It was clear as well, that Harper knew what she was getting herself into and it was her choice ultimately.
My only reservation was that some of the family members (father,
sister) were one-dimensional to the point where it was hard to
believe. Perhaps that was how Harper saw them, or perhaps that
was done to set-off the volatile emotional intensity of the mother (Jean Smart, who was also good), and the repressed/about-to-emerge artistic intensity of Harper.
I am a die-hard Stephen Rea fan after seeing this film.
A film for the artists
2005-07-12 - At first glance this film seems like a bad American TV movie, it is certainly shot like one. However 10 mins in you start to realise that this film has a little bit more going for it than that. The film follows the story of a girl in her early 20s and her journey into adulthood. On the way she falls for an older man, battles her parents and gets more than a glimce into the life of an artist. This film is perfect for anyone struggling with artistic asperations, think "American Beauty" meets "Lost in Translation." That's all you need to know, now go buy it!
Given the cast I am shocked there is no awe in this one 
2005-05-05 - The best scene in "Guinevere" belongs to Jean Smart and it is also the scene that exposes the fatal flaw in this 1999 drama from writer-director Audrey Wells ("Under the Tuscan Sun"). Smart plays Deborah Sloane, who has discovered that her 20-year-old daughter Harper (Sarah Polley) is shacked up with Connie Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea), a photograph and drunk (not always in that order) who is older than Deborah. Harper is the latest in a series of young girls that Connie has taken under his wing as his "Guinevere," but Deborah does not know about all that. What she knows is that someone older than she is happens to be having sex with her daughter, and Deborah has a theory as to why this is happening and why Connie does not like women his own age. When she asks what Harper has that she does not, her answer is "awe." Harper can look at Connie with awe, whereas Deborah, who has been around, cannot. The problem is that neither can we.
You have to understand that Deborah is a rather unsympathetic figure in this film, destroying a dinner with her family by her insistence that they read the fortunes in their fortune cookies and add "in bed" to the end. But she is devastating right about Connie and that is why this film does not work for me. I have no problem with the idea that a story about an artist who goes through a series of young women who act as his muses and protégés. We meet most of the rest of these Guineveres during the course of the film and some of them are played by Gina Gershon, Sandra Oh and Jasmine Guy. But what we do not get to see is any evidence that Connie is any sort of artistic genius. There are some decent black & white photographs but basically you have to take the film's position that he is worth of emulation let alone awe. The most demonstrative talent Connie shows in the film is to (euphemism warning) make her extremely happy while she is still dressed (okay, not so much a euphemism as being extremely vague).
There is even less of an idea in the film that Harper would be a worthy protégé, or muse for that matter. This is rather odd because as an actress Sarah Polley usually makes her characters seem pretty smart (not Julia Stiles smart but certainly in the Jodie Foster range), and here she only comes across as clueless without a sense of direction. Connie must look better to Harper than her family or going to Harvard, but that is not really saying much, and when we see her at the end of the film and she is clearly a confident young woman, there is no real reason to give Connie the credit. So I cannot help but think that if Connie wants to do the Svengali routine, he could do better than Harper. If I am thinking that, then clearly "Guinevere" is not working despite the solid cast. The fault is not in the performances, but in the script.
Admittedly the problem can be that I am of the wrong gender to appreciate a film that is essentially a female coming of age story. Certainly that is an almost microscopic movie genre in comparison to male coming of age stories (which might actually cover most movies being made today now that I stop and think about it). I also have a problem with the idea that given a choice between Jean Smart and Sarah Polley (abstracted to the general level of a woman in her forties versus a woman in her twenties) the choice is obvious, and that would be because I know what the former has that the latter does not. But the main complaint remains that while I might be able to buy Harper and Connie are lovers I cannot accept them as student and teacher, and ultimately that is what is supposed to make "Guinevere" more than just another older man/younger woman movie, even if it is told from her perspective.
