Guest Author - Peggy Maddox

Ever since the 1960s I've been a fan of Judi Dench and Maggie Smith.

I was fortunate enough to see them in several London stage productions in the 1960s, when they were in their mid- to late-20s.

Judi Dench was in the first performance of a Shakespeare play that I saw in England: A Midsummer-Night's Dream. The play was staged in Regent's Park, at dusk. By time for the fairies to come out, night had fallen and they emerged from the bushes carrying little twinkling lights.

Judi Dench played Titania, Queen of the Fairies. I'll never forget the magic of that evening.

Later on, I saw Maggie Smith in several productions, including Much Ado About Nothing. She played Beatrice.

When I came across the title Ladies in Lavender and saw that it featured both Dench and Smith, I had to watch it.

Well, the performances of the two women were predictably excellent, but the story didn't show me much.

The movie is based on a short story by William J. Locke. Charles Dance did the screenplay.

Two elderly sisters living in a cottage on the Cornwall coast discover an injured man who has washed ashore during a storm. As there is no wreckage, it's assumed that he was washed overboard from a ship that went on without him.

The young man, Andrea, played by Daniel Brühl, is Polish and speaks no English. He does speak German, as does Janet, the older sister played by Maggie Smith. Ursula, (Judi Dench), becomes extremely possessive of the rescued youth. Although at least 50 years younger than he, she forms a romantic attachment to him.

I haven't read the story on which the movie is based. Things only hinted at in the film are probably explained in the story Why Ursula becomes so fixated on the boy is never stated explicitly in the film. It is mentioned that Janet had been married. The implication is that spinster Ursula missed out on romance and sex in her youth and sees in Andrea a focus for all her pent-up romantic longings.

It's not clear how long Andrea is with the sisters. His broken ankle heals and he learns enough English to communicate with the villagers. When he becomes acquainted with a young attractive German tourist, Ursula is tormented by jealousy.

The supporting cast contribute to a realistic impression of a remote English village in the 1930s on the eve of the outbreak of WWII. I especially enjoyed Clive Russell as the fiddler Adam Penruddocke who comes to play for Andrea. He generously lends the stranger his fiddle when he finds out how astoundingly well Andrea can play.

Miriam Margolyes excels as the grumpy housekeeper Dorcas. The other villagers look the part and may even have been drawn from the local population.

David Warner plays Francis Mead, the local doctor who, when the lovely German tourist rebuffs his romantic advances, develops an aversion to Andrea. When Dr. Mead hears them speaking together in German, he reports them to the local police as potential spies.

Warner is another actor I saw perform in his youth. I distinctly remember his performance as Hamlet. It was dreadful. He staved about the stage in Russian boots declaiming the lines without much feeling. I think it was probably too early in his career to take on such a demanding part.

Ladies in Lavender is not for everyone, but admirers of Dames Dench and Smith will like it.