Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This film ought to be better than it is, because it has a lot going for it. The third in a trilogy of movies about the English class system, it benefits like its predecessors (The Accident and The Servant) from a well crafted, highly literate script by Harold Pinter. The house it is largely set in and around - Melton Constable - looks stunning, very different from its present sad condition. It benefits from a stellar cast of actors, some of the best in the UK at the time. Julie Christie looks absolutely gorgeous, at her best, and Margaret Leighton turns in a dazzling performance as the embattled and indignant matriarch. So where does it fall down? It lacks tension to start with. Losey's direction is lacklustre, just look at the cinematography in some of the longer, interior scenes, it's basically painting by numbers. The whole film is languid, like the hot Norfolk summer it is set in. The colour print has not worn well. And the music is inappropriate for both tone and plot, all jangling piano, far too loud and intrusive. Still, it's worth watching for the recreation of rural England pre-1914. This is so well done, albeit a tad over the top at times in the playing up of class differences (especially in the cricket match)

The inexplicable winner of the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (equivalent of the Palme d'Or) at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, The Go-Between (1970) is, to a degree, a love story. Romance films don't typically interest me unless there's some kind of twist to it. In this case, there appeared to be potential in telling it from the perspective of a young boy, supposedly a junior sorcerer, who acts as a messenger between two lovers (one being Julie Christie) and faces an ethical dilemma in assisting what's essentially adultery. Elements of class inequality are touched on.Alas, I don't feel the film quite realizes its potential. What relevance there is to the boy dabbling in "magic" may come across in the book, but in the film it seems immaterial and largely unexplored. The drama concerning the main plot rarely materializes. Aside from one scene where the boy is interrogated shrewdly by an old lady about inconsistencies as to who he's bringing messages to, we only have one small hissy fit thrown by Christie when the boy refuses to deliver a letter. What we're left with is mainly a slow, uneventful look at the English countryside, with most characters being polite but grey and dull, and hard to empathize with. Cannes had better than this.

In the early 1900s, a 12-year-old boy staying with his school-friend and his friend's family in the English countryside for the summer becomes indirectly involved in the clandestine affair between a privileged young woman and a lusty, low-class farmer. Harboring a crush on his friend's older sister, the lad is at first anxious to be her messenger, but his feelings soon sour once he realizes he's being used--as is the woman's rich, stuffy intended--in a game of love-play which he does not altogether understand. Harold Pinter's adaptation of the novel by L.P. Hartley smartly concentrates on the boy's perception of the events, although the flash-forwards in time (which culminate in an obtuse epilogue) fall rather flat. Joseph Losey directs in a clear, concise manner without too much dawdling about, building up the tension in the household with precision. Disapproving family matriarch Margaret Leighton, who sees the world through slanted, jaded eyes, has a terrifically charged moment late in the movie where she confronts the child over a letter in his pocket, and young Dominic Guard is excellent as well. The star-crossed lovers, Julie Christie and Alan Bates, have far less to work with (surprisingly), but do have superlative moments. The unvarying score by Michel Legrand becomes monotonous before long, and the production design and cinematography are disappointing, though the film has a quiet power that is unsettling. **1/2 from ****

In the English countryside of 1900, a boy serves as a messenger between a young woman from a rich family who is engaged to be married to a viscount and a neighbor farmer of lower standing, facilitating a forbidden love affair. Like "Picnic at Hanging Rock," this is a very deliberately paced film where nothing much happens. The main point of interest is the atmosphere, marked by beautiful cinematography. However, with characters who are not terribly interesting and without much of a plot, the film really overstays its welcome at a running time of two hours. The acting is fine all around, including Christie and Bates in the lead roles of the lovers.