Ryan’s Daughter (1970)

Directed by David Lean. Starring Sarah Miles, Robert Mitchum, Christopher Jones, Leo McKern, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Barry Foster, Gerald Smith, Evin Crowley, Marie Kean, Arthur O’Sullivan. [PG]

Following up the likes of Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, director Lean was still in “epic” mode when he helmed this mammoth production without the plot or excitement to fill it. Robert Bolt’s screen story is little more than a lumbering love triangle—Irish lass Miles marries simple, quiet schoolteacher Mitchum, then begins an affair with haunted soldier Jones (and goodness knows why, considering how dull he is, from a performance that can best be described as “tortured oak”); all the other sub-plots and side characters are embroidery, and no one knows when to cut the threads already. While overlength and inexcusable proportions are a major issue, the weakness of its central interest is just as problematic, especially the particulars of the sudden, supposedly-passionate infidelity—Miles and Jones’ soggy forest lovemaking, replete with “symbolic” dandelion spores blown away to feather the surface of a pond, is only a couple degrees removed from sparkly vampire territory. An impressive storm sequence and Freddie Jones’ sweeping, Oscar-winning photography are among the few virtues. Playing a parish priest, Howard is the only member of the cast to do noteworthy work, even though Mills scored an Academy Award playing the village idiot (as a prime example of an Oscar bait role, it’s nothing to write home about). When it comes to romantic torment in Lean’s hands, stick to the much, much better and much, much shorter Brief Encounter.

35/100