Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Sir Anthony Hopkins brings dignity and poignancy to a role that most actors of his ilk may shun for fear of either being typecast or remembered poorly. James is a man who let himself be defined by his profession in a day and age where servants were noble and noblemen were fools.

Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson are two thespians who could arguably make reading the telephone book into a vivid experience, but even their copious talents are sorely tested with this pointless drawing room melodrama of manners. The Remains of the Day is yet another in a seemingly endless parade of staid British interior decorating historical dramas that propagated during the 1980s-1990s from the Merchant-Ivory stable. When the concept worked, one had solid films like Howard's End or A Room With a View. When it failed, you got The Remains of the Day.Set circa WW2, stiff, rule-bound butler Hopkins finds his narrow worldview challenged by the arrival of sunny head housekeeper Thompson, who is not afraid to lock horns with him in his British manor domain. The relationship ostensibly moves from friction to grudging respect to something much deeper.There are a number of problems that plague The Remains of the Day that hinder the enjoyment of it, despite the best efforts of its leads. Despite being sprinkled with some notable performers, the supporting cast is shamefully underused and forgettable. Everyone seems to have been directed to underact to the point of catatonia. Even Thompson, playing a somewhat more vibrant character than her cast members, seems unduly restrained here.The pace can generously be described as sluggish. This is made worse in that most modern audiences will not understand or relate to servants who give up all hope of lives for themselves in order to live vicariously through buffoonish upper crust snobs. Nothing brings this home more so than the ludicrous sequence wherein Hopkins refuses to present at the side of his father's deathbed so that he can ostensibly serve drinks to the Nazi-sympathizing lord of the manor (played on one strident note by James Fox). This episode may well be historically accurate, but it seems a foolish move to a modern viewer and fails to endear the lead character, whose emotions are often so repressed throughout the film as to make him seem robotic.Worse, there is no character arc here. We open the film with Hopkins strait-jacketed into his role as an unbending, unemotional servant. There are moments throughout where he has some obvious interior struggle, especially with the arrival of Thompson, but he never breaks through this facade. When Thompson's character resigns from the manor in protest, we again think that there will be some forward momentum for Hopkins's butler, but again he fails to change. At the climax, we are again led to believe that Hopkins may break free of these now self-imposed bonds of behavior and social class mores, when American Christopher Reeve buys the manor and encourages him to take his first ever vacation. Hopkins does so only grudgingly and seeks out Thompson, ostensibly to convey his unrequited feelings, but yet again fails to do so. In fairness, Hopkins plays the role to the hilt, but nothing can disguise that he is playing a dull man. This character changes nary a jot throughout the film; he is the same rigid, hopeless creation at the end as he is at the start. With no emotional investment or character arc, the most we can summon is some minor pity. Although truthfully one may well also wonder why so much time (and this film does seem glacially long) should be wasted on such an intractable and uninteresting man.Just in case we have not gotten the "message" of the film (such as it is), it concludes with a laughably heavy-handed segment where Hopkins stares frozen and slack-jawed at a pigeon that has gotten into the manor and seems trapped there. Get it! The pigeon is like him! Trapped in the manor and unable to free itself! This is for all the slow learners that did not get what was hammered home for the lengthy running time preceding this moment. Critics and Oscar voters, of course, love pretentious twaddle like this and could not resist raining down kudos, but it does little more than serve as proof that film elites really like boring British dramas set in tastefully decorated manor houses.

Stevens is butler to Lord Darlington (as was his father before him) managing Lord Darlingtons stately home and large number of servants.He has been trained and brought up to 'serve' unquestioningly as a gentleman's gentleman. To be the perfect butler in service to his 'betters'. Miss Kenton is the new house keeper and tries to get him to at least question aspects of his work. Particularly when Lord Darlington decides to repatriate some young Jewish refugees (who had escaped Nazi Germany) back to Germany. It is Stevens struggle to sacrifice any love for Miss Kenton. To never question his 'betters' judgement on any matter. But to blindly serve his master and sacrifice any life he may have of his own. However, set shortly before World War II the world is changing and a life time 'of service' is becoming a thing of the past. A riveting and beautiful film, superbly acted by Thompson and Hopkins 8/10 Far better that Downton Abbey, and even (dare I say) Upstairs Downstairs (the latter was often let down by wobbly scenery)

As I turned the lights up in our TV room, my wife and I looked at each other and both said, "What was THAT??" In this case "that" was "The Remains of the Day," a story about a butler who has the range of emotions of Chance the Gardener in "Being There," and the personality of drying paint.Playing this role was a tough assignment, but give credit to Anthony Hopkins for pulling it off. Without his performance, this movie would be a complete stinker. With it, the movie is watchable, but still unsatisfying. The main problem is that the movie doesn't go anywhere. You know, the old "writing 101" business about beginning, middle, and end, and the concept that there ought to be a climax or resolution or something that pulls things together as you get to the final scenes.Instead, at the end you just scratch your head and wonder why you just spent 2+ hours watching this thing.If someone recommends this movie to you because your wife likes "Downton Abbey" (which is how we came to rent it), do yourself a favor and instead rent the very similar, and infinitely better film, "The Grand Budapest Hotel." It too has a "majordomo" at its center (a concierge at a hotel instead of a butler in a private residence), but the characters in that film are infinitely more interesting and compelling. That film is also told in flashbacks, but to much better effect. But the key difference is that the resolutions at the end are satisfying in all respects.What makes it so much better? One word: writing. It is simply much, much better-written.So, "The Remains of the Day" is way over-rated (nominated for a "best picture" Oscar which it most definitely did not deserve) and, except for Hopkins' performance, deserves no other accolades.