CinemaSerf
2/10/2023
Dirk Bogarde is a philosophy professor at Oxford University - happily married with two children; and another on the way. He has a favourite student - Michael York who is keen on a newcomer; the glamorous Austrian Jacqueline Sassard. They have a Sunday lunch with an additional guest in Stanley Baker - a fellow professor who is struggling with his own marriage; as well as his - envy evoking - television career. It's a sort of intellectual menage-à-trois - Bogarde fancies his Austrian student but she has eyes on both York and Baker... Even the consumption of excesses of booze at the lunch/dinner/supper doesn't inject much into this. It lacks any degree of edginess or depth - but merely provides us with a spotlight on the bored, affected, educational middle-classes that doesn't really shine anything beyond highlighting the shallowness of the characters created by Nicholas Mosley - and not really enhanced much by Harold Pinter.. The performances, especially from Baker, are good but there just isn't enough substance to generate a spark!
