The Last September

Filmmakers looking for a novelist with whom to replace the depleted stores of Jane Austen, Henry James, and E.M. Forster could do worse than Elizabeth Bowen: her handful of novels are brilliantly bedimmed and whimsically subversive jewels of 20th-century romantic disillusionment. Neither would it be hard to improve on this adaptation of Bowen's 1929 novel The Last September. Directed by first-timer Deborah Warner from a screenplay by the novelist John Banville, the film compresses the witty tragedy of vanity crushed by the forces of history and social mediocrity into a picturesque, pat, and pointless episode of Masterpiece Theatre.

Those enjoying the fine weather at the estate of Sir Richard (Michael Gambon) and Myra (Maggie Smith) Naylor in County Cork in 1920 take little notice of the ongoing Irish Rebellion. Anglo-Irish aristocracy, the Naylors note the inconvenience but appreciate the presence of the British military, whose officers provide suitable dancing partners for their 19-year-old, fancy-free niece, Lois Farquar (Keeley Hawes). One of those, Captain Colthurst (David Tennant), has the misfortune to fall in love with her. And Lois herself has the bad taste to renew acquaintances with childhood pal Peter Connolly (Gary Lydon), a feral Fenian hiding out at the old local mill.

The literally bodice-ripping details of the meetings between Lois and Peter are among the filmmakers' more regrettable inventions. Sometimes September approaches the magic of the original: the eerie image of a man carrying a gramophone across a tennis lawn at dusk, or the play of headlights over distant trees as army lorries patrol for terrorists. And Fiona Shaw as Marda Norton, a late visiting guest, adds a note of arch elegance. But it's too little too late -- for the most part, the mercurial precision of Bowen's prose translates into a green and gold murk, as if shot through the rust and algae of a stagnant fountain. At the Avon.
-- Peter Keough