That Good Night

Although it is given a certain poignancy by the fact that it was John Hurt’s swansong (he died before it was released) Eric Styles' picture-postcard film is an anodyne affair that despite its glossy widescreen cimematography is more deserving of the small screen.

Hurt plays Ralph Maitland, a once-feted British writer living in Portugal with his beautiful, younger wife (Sofia Helin). When he is diagnosed with a terminal illness (as Hurt had been in 2015) he summons his estranged son Michael (Max Brown) to “settle” things. Michael however brings his girlfriend (Erin Richards)  which the irascible Ralph regards as a slight and so a stressful weekend begins.

N.J. Crisp's 1996 play on which the film is based is evidently very traditional, something which could have been written anytime in the last century. This, needless to say, is not inherently problematic and as raw material it has much to offer a film-maker. What is problematic, however,is Style' pedestrian direction and the film’s suffocatingly cosy middle-class production values - Ralph’s rakishly bohemian attire, his beautiful gallery-owning wife with the soft-top Mercedes, their sun-drenched designer villa with its immaculate swimming pool and to-die-for views  and so on. It’s all so idyllically picturesque bit it's also so terminally boring and is made more so by a muzak-like score by Guy Farley that tinkles incessantly in the background.

Whilst Hurt was a much loved character actor he was by no means a great thespian and his performance here is not especially notable (for this check out his Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant,1975), just longer than usual.  Even so, he is the film’s strong card with his scenes with another screen veteran, Charles Dance, the most effective.  As the son, Brown is a bland presence and that only makes Richards and Helin seem even more so.  And why Noah Jupe, recently to good effect in Suburbicon but here gruesome was cast as the Portugese housemaid’s son is a mystery.

FYI: For a much more engaging variation on the same theme check out Harry Dean Stanton's final film, Lucky, which was also released in 2017.

 

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