# Stiff Upper Lips (1998)

### reviewed by
Harvey S. Karten

    STIFF UPPER LIPS

Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Cowboy Booking International Director: Gary Sinyor Writer: Stephen Deitch, Paul Simpkin Cast: Peter Ustinov, Prunella Scales, Georgina Cates, Samuel West, Sean Pertwee, Brian Glover, Frank Finlay, Robert Portal, Richard Brain, David Ashton, Mac McDonald, Kate Harper

Beauty can be effectively satirized by movies. Look only to the recent opening of "Drop Dead Gorgeous" to receive parody upon burlesque (however ineffectual) of American beauty pageants. If beauty contests can be satirized, why not beautiful movies? There's no better target for spoofing in that sense than the productions of director James Ivory and his producer, Ismael Merchant, whose Masterpiece Theater- type films are perfectly lovely--too much so. Theirs are the kinds of works that lead elderly folks to stop outside the marquees and reminisce, "They don't make 'em like that anymore." Merchant-Ivory movies highlight lavish mansions with groaning-board banquets, exquisitely dressed people, and subtle dialogue amid the natural splendor of English landscapes. How utterly useless! At least that's what Esquire film critic David Thomson thought when he once said, "The loveliness of Merchant-Ivory gives me the creeps!" And that's what director Gary Sinyor considers when in his "Stiff Upper Lips" he concocts a story about a woman who tries to force her niece to marry a big English bore when she guides her and a coterie through Italy and India in the hope that the young woman will forget her handsome and fascinating love interest--who is of a far lower social class.

Mavens of Merchant-Ivory, Masterpiece-Theater movies will sit gloating as they check off which of that team's films are parodied at which moment. Is that shot of two English university students involved in a hurdles race--one bearing a crucifix about his neck while the other sports a Star of David-- from "Chariots of Fire"? Does that sign outside the train that points to the town of Ivory's End have anything to do with "Howard's End"? When one character wonders, "Why do you need a room with a view," could that just possibly be from "A Room with a View"? And does the servant who urinates into the soup and later into the fruit cup bear any resemblance at all to the Anthony Hopkins guy in "Remains of the Day"?

But you'll get no answers here. You'll have to see the film, which to its detractors is merely a series of Saturday-Night- Live skits but to aficionados of this sort of film is a stroke of luck. Unlike satires like the awful, no-joke "Drop Dead Gorgeous"--which does not have a single likeable character-- "Stiff Upper Lips" may ridicule the pretentiousness of Ismael and James, but displays quite a bit of affection toward them and their genre. (In fact Ismael Merchant was even offered a small role in the film.)

The story centers on the relationship between Agnes Ivory (Prunella Scales, who is not unlike the maiden aunt in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest") and her independent-minded and lovely niece, Emily Ivory (Georgina Cates). Emily wants to marry whom she chooses while her more "responsible" aunt wants her to marry someone of the right social class, specifically the boring stick, Cedric Trilling (Robert Portal). At first neither aunt nor niece could be said to favor the view of Sir Arthur Sullivan's admiral in HMS Pinafore who insists that "love levels all classes. " Emily is horrified that a hunk who saves her from drowning, George (Sean Pertweek), is from the lower orders, a man who regularly drinks at a tavern called "The Scum of the Earth." Agnes makes a reluctant servant of George and together with Emily and Emily's effete brother Edward (Samuel West) she heads for Italy and then India in the hope of bringing Emily and Cedric closer together. What follows is a roundelay of sexual situations, wherein Emily's brother (who has sexual feelings only for his stuffed teddy bears) and the monocle- clad Cedric (who has "this strange feeling" for him) decide that they are well-suited for each other.

If "Stiff Upper Lips" does not retain the beauty of the real Merchant-Ivory films, director Gary Sinyor nonetheless does well by India and Italy, photographing elephants, sahibs, and marvelous Roman-style monuments on location. Georgina Cates is drop-dead gorgeous as usual and Prunella Scales furthers her reputation as one of England's top character actresses. Peter Ustinov should have been in more scenes. He does fine as both a judge, stiffly explaining British law to a congregation of Indian subjects in a courtroom, and as a suitor to Aunt Agnes--rounding out a happy ending for all in which each character finds the person who is just made for him or her. Though Merchant-Ivory metaphors are skewered- -compulsive letter-writing, racial animosities, suggestive carvings, huge loads of luggage--you can easily sense the affection that Sinyor and his co-writer Jeremy Bolt have for the target of their barbs. You won't keep your stiff upper lip for long as you watch the entertainment unfold.

    Not Rated.  Running Time: 94 minutes.  (C) 1999
    Harvey Karten

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