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Ep. 14: 'Remains of the Day': Kazou Ishiguro's Quiet Story of Loud Emotions
15 Plays8 months ago
On this episode of Adaptation: The Book to Movie Podcast, Nate and Chris dive into Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel The Remains of the Day and its Oscar-nominated 1993 film adaptation starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. They explore how Ishiguro masterfully turns a seemingly mundane butler's journey into a gut-wrenching meditation on dignity, duty, emotional repression, and the pain of missed chances.
Chris shares why this is his most gifted and re-read book, including how a single Tom Waits song changed its ending. Nate breaks down why the film's tone and structure didn't initially resonate with him and how the adaptation struggles (and sometimes succeeds) to translate Stevens' interiority to the screen.
Expect thoughtful comparisons to Atonement, Pride and Prejudice, and even Murderbot, plus thoughts on Jurassic World: Rebirth and Denis Villeneuve taking on James Bond for Amazon.
Follow us on social media:
Nate's Letterboxd (@professor_n8)
Chris's Letterboxd (@cjanderson878)
Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
"Adaptation Theme"
- Written by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow
- Performed by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow, Nate Day
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Transcript
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Chris Joins Letterboxd
00:00:39
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today.
00:00:39
Speaker
I'm
00:00:49
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Welcome to Adaptation, the Booked Movie Podcast.
00:00:52
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I'm Nate.
00:00:53
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And I'm Chris.
00:00:54
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And this week we are discussing Kazu Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and its film adaptation.
00:01:01
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Some big news from us this week.
00:01:04
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First and foremost, Chris has joined a new social media app, which is sort of crazy.
00:01:09
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Chris, tell us about it.
00:01:10
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You're on Letterboxd.
00:01:12
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Yeah, I finally downloaded it.
00:01:13
Speaker
You know what's worse?
00:01:14
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I thought I've had it all along.
00:01:17
Speaker
Oh, because I talk about it all the time?
00:01:20
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Yeah.
00:01:22
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Yeah, I think you've mentioned it so many times that I just thought I must have already downloaded this.
00:01:27
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And so it was a surprise that I hadn't.
00:01:31
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But I like it.
00:01:31
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I like the format, the user friendliness, I guess.
00:01:35
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Yeah, Letterboxd is, I love that app so much.
00:01:39
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I like it.
00:01:39
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I like being able to see what you're watching.
00:01:41
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I mean, obviously, we talk about it all the time anyway.
00:01:43
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Right.
00:01:44
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Yeah.
00:01:45
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Yeah.
00:01:45
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That's exactly why it's so fun.
00:01:47
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And you get to write silly little reviews.
00:01:49
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And you got to start building out your watch list.
00:01:53
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I have not figured out how to yet.
00:01:57
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All right, I'll send you a screen capture after this.
Denis Villeneuve's New Bond Film
00:02:00
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Wonderful, thank you.
00:02:02
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Otherwise, the really big news in the industry, or in the movie industry anyway, is that Denis Villeneuve has been tapped to direct the James Bond movie for Amazon MGM.
00:02:15
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And the rumor is that they're looking at young guys to play Bond.
00:02:19
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So I kind of wanted to get your thoughts there.
00:02:21
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On both the director and the casting of a young buck Bond.
00:02:27
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Well, I think you can guess my thoughts on the director.
00:02:30
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You love it.
00:02:32
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What have they done?
00:02:33
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Who do I know them from?
00:02:35
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I do not recognize this name at all.
00:02:37
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Dune.
00:02:38
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The two Dune movies.
00:02:39
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Oh, that's right.
00:02:40
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I knew that.
00:02:44
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I am cautiously optimistic.
00:02:47
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Okay.
00:02:48
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Okay.
00:02:49
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Because in my mind, those are two films that, like, cinematography-wise, should not be akin to each other.
00:02:58
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Sure.
00:02:58
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Okay.
00:02:59
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Actually, the Bond themselves, I think we've talked about this ad nauseum together.
00:03:05
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I have for years said the next Bond should be Idris Elba.
00:03:08
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Yeah, and you're dead right.
00:03:10
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And at one point, I think that was the case.
00:03:13
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I had an inside scoop earlier in my career that implied that that was going to be the case, and then I think...
00:03:19
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between time and the studios changing hands and things like that, I'm sure that has fallen through.
00:03:25
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But I think a young Bond is a really bad idea.
00:03:28
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I think that's really stupid.
00:03:30
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Agreed.
00:03:31
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His charm comes from the fact that he's, you know, been doing what he's been doing for 30 years, so he can't really be 30 years old.
00:03:39
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Connery was the first and arguably the best.
00:03:42
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Yeah.
00:03:43
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Yeah, it'll be interesting to see who they choose.
00:03:46
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It also leaked that the director is not going to have final cut approval or final casting approval.
00:03:53
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So this could really turn into a big, fat, dumb mess pretty quickly.
00:03:57
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Who is it going to?
00:03:58
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Like Ian Fleming's estate or something?
00:04:00
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No, Amazon.
00:04:02
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Oh my gosh.
00:04:03
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Yeah.
00:04:03
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No.
00:04:04
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Yeah.
00:04:05
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It'll be interesting to see where they go.
00:04:06
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I think they're out of books to adapt now, if I'm not mistaken.
00:04:09
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I briefly looked at a list.
00:04:12
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And there might be some short stories or anthology entries that they could turn into this next James Bond installment.
00:04:19
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But I think they're out of full length novels.
00:04:22
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So it'll be really interesting just to see.
00:04:26
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I believe you're correct.
00:04:27
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I also have not confirmed that, but I believe that was my understanding as well.
Chris's Journey with 'The Pillars of the Earth'
00:04:31
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Yeah.
00:04:32
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Well, I read that.
00:04:33
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That was an easy dovetail.
00:04:34
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The other book that I just finished was a thousand page tome.
00:04:39
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Oh, yeah.
00:04:40
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called The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.
00:04:43
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Sounds thrilling.
00:04:45
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I have tried this.
00:04:49
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This was maybe my fourth or fifth attempt, and I finally finished it.
00:04:54
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Fourth or fifth time starting it, and the previous times all failing a couple hundred pages in.
00:05:00
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Wow, and you're pretty staunch on giving up on books, too, if they're not doing it for you.
00:05:04
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So what changed this time?
00:05:08
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It was so acclaimed that I felt like there must be something there that I'm not getting to.
00:05:14
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And honestly, it was no different than any of these phenomenal series that we love.
00:05:20
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He just didn't split it up into multiple books.
00:05:24
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Which I think a modern author almost certainly would have.
00:05:31
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Sure.
00:05:32
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And what's crazy is it is a series.
00:05:35
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It's the first of a series, too.
00:05:37
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Yeah, published in 89.
00:05:38
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Oh, okay.
00:05:38
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So it was published the same year that the book we're discussing today was.
00:05:43
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So not an old, old author, but not recent.
00:05:46
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So that's what I've been reading.
00:05:47
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What have you been watching?
00:05:49
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I have been watching, well, the big one was that I saw the new Jurassic Park movie called Jurassic World Rebirth.
00:05:55
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Our last episode was, of course, about the OG Jurassic Park.
00:06:00
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I liked Rebirth more than it seems like most people did.
00:06:04
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I mean, it made a boatload of money, so who knows where all these opinions are coming from, but
00:06:08
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It doesn't have great scores on Rotten Tomatoes or Letterboxd or anything like that.
00:06:13
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So some people are not liking it for sure.
00:06:16
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I thought it was just really good summer popcorn fare.
00:06:19
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You know, people trying to survive dinosaurs.
00:06:23
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I did write in my Letterboxd review, I don't think it's a very good Jurassic Park movie.
00:06:27
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It's not really about the... I don't feel like natural reverence for dinosaurs, which I think is very much a part of...
00:06:34
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What makes that first movie so special?
00:06:36
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But it's a dinosaur movie and it's serviceable.
00:06:39
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Like, it looks decent.
00:06:41
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It's got big movie stars.
00:06:43
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The script is weird.
00:06:44
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The script is pretty bad.
00:06:47
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But otherwise, it's a serviceable movie.
00:06:51
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Which one?
00:06:51
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I mean, no.
00:06:53
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Okay, I couldn't figure this out.
00:06:54
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And I assumed you would know.
00:06:55
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This was the seventh or the eighth?
00:06:58
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Seventh.
00:06:58
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Yeah, seventh.
00:07:00
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I've not heard a single person...
00:07:02
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Of the first six go, man, incredible writing.
00:07:06
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You gotta see, you know, like that's not, that's not what we're here for.
00:07:10
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No, I mean, the first movie for sure is, is very perfectly composed.
00:07:16
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But really, in my opinion, it's the only good one in the franchise.
00:07:20
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So exactly to your point, I don't know really what people are asking for here.
00:07:24
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When you're batting one out of six, what do you think that seventh one's going to be?
00:07:29
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07:30
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And what are people's expectations at this point?
00:07:32
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Right.
00:07:34
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I liked it fine.
00:07:34
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If it's fine, go enjoy it.
00:07:38
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Sit in an air-conditioned theater for two hours and watch some dinosaurs eat people.
00:07:43
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I'm going to see it no matter what.
00:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:46
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I think you're going to like it just fine, if not love it, because it's like a good adventure movie.
00:07:52
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Hell yeah.
00:07:53
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And then other than that, you know, I've got my rewatches and my other
New Podcast Format & Audience Engagement
00:07:57
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new...
00:07:58
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First Time Watch is logged on Letterboxd.
00:08:00
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But as for our conversation today, Chris and I are excited to share a brand new format for our discussion.
00:08:08
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But basically, we're going to cut down on our own lectures a little bit and kind of avoid spoilers a little bit more.
00:08:15
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And then also share our sort of general reviews of the book and the movie within our sections as well.
00:08:22
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And then we have some discussion questions that we're going to have, you know, use to
00:08:28
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drive discussion between the two of us, but we'd also love to hear your thoughts.
00:08:31
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So be sure to comment if you're listening on Spotify and, and also you can follow us on social media, the links to which are all in the episode description below, including to Chris's new letterbox.
00:08:44
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Be sure to, to get it, get over there and follow him so we can pressure him to start logging movies and building that watch list.
00:08:51
Speaker
And I locked all the movies you need.
00:08:55
Speaker
That's true.
Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Remains of the Day'
00:08:56
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He did put his top four in place, and they are very Chris-coded.
00:09:02
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But with that, Chris is still up first.
00:09:06
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Tell us, Chris, about the book Remains of the Day.
00:09:09
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Yeah, Remains of the Day.
00:09:11
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And tell us how bad I butchered the author's name here in the beginning.
00:09:15
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No, we were just missing a note.
00:09:16
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Kazuo Ishiguro.
00:09:18
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Oh, I was so close.
00:09:19
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So close.
00:09:21
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Yeah, published in 1989, Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro.
00:09:25
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Let's dive in with no spoilers, I think.
00:09:30
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Okay, I feel like this one doesn't really have any, like, spoiler spoilers.
00:09:35
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You know what I mean?
00:09:37
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We'll get there.
00:09:38
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Okay, all right.
00:09:39
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We'll get there.
00:09:40
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Okay, so the author himself, Kazuo Ishiguro, born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954, emigrated with his parents to England in 1960.
00:09:51
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when he was five.
00:09:52
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And he, I thought this was cool.
00:09:55
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He credits this upbringing, you know, growing up in England, but with Japanese parents as part of what's offered him such a distinct perspective that many, many authors and critics laud in his writing.
00:10:11
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Yeah.
00:10:12
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First two novels were both exploring this heritage and he actually had a lot to say around essentially like I was five.
00:10:20
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This is kind of a made-up Japan in my mind.
00:10:24
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These are not from memories.
00:10:25
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I believe he didn't revisit again for like another 30 years.
00:10:31
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I think it was 1990 before he went back to Japan himself.
00:10:36
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But the first two were really about that.
00:10:39
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Branched out a ton.
00:10:41
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He was a musician for a long time.
00:10:43
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He's won awards as a musician.
00:10:45
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I guess I couldn't tell if it was playwright or adapting plays for the screen, something along those lines, wrote sci-fi, wrote a number of genres, ultimately won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017.
00:10:56
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Okay, big.
00:10:58
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Which is, I believe, why, I don't remember exactly why this book came onto my radar, but I believe it was, it sprang from that and seeing that this was his most famous.
00:11:10
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Okay.
00:11:11
Speaker
So what did he win the Nobel Prize for?
00:11:14
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What book in 2017 did he win the prize?
00:11:16
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I think that's more for contribution to literature more broadly.
00:11:19
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:11:20
Speaker
Great.
00:11:22
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I should know the answer to that.
00:11:24
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Next week, I will.
00:11:25
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Okay, good.
00:11:29
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This book literally immediately won the Booker Prize same year that it came out in 1989.
00:11:37
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And like all of these lists that you could possibly imagine.
00:11:42
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Commonwealth books, you know, books by British authors, most important books of like kind of strange decade parameters, like 1980 to 2005, top 100 books you need to read just all over the place.
00:11:55
Speaker
People love this book.
00:11:57
Speaker
Wow.
00:11:59
Speaker
I ran into this and I just thought it was fun since we so recently talked about atonement.
00:12:03
Speaker
I feel like it was recent.
00:12:04
Speaker
I guess at this point that was like two months ago.
00:12:07
Speaker
In a poll in 2006, a later book of his, Never Let Me Go, which I haven't read yet, tied with Atonement.
00:12:15
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I think those two and like three other books all tied for a third of the most important books for that time period.
00:12:21
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Wow.
00:12:22
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Which I thought was cool.
00:12:24
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So Remains of the Day is about a butler.
00:12:26
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First and foremost, dude named Stevens.
00:12:28
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I think the cool part of it is this is very much the...
00:12:33
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mundane blank slate on which Ishiguro wrote a book absolutely not about being a butler.
00:12:41
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Yeah, not at all.
00:12:42
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Right.
00:12:43
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But that's, I mean, at face value, and certainly, sometimes almost nauseatingly, although I would be hard pressed to criticize any of this writing, you're definitely like, why am I reading so much about butlers?
00:12:56
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Sure.
00:12:56
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Yeah, I can see that.
00:12:59
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It's entirely first-person point of view, which I certainly do not see often.
00:13:06
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The language choice in particular, I think, is clearly very deliberate and really brings you into it, really sucks you into the narrative.
00:13:16
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He's the butler of this English gentleman, an English lord.
00:13:22
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I said around the Second World War.
00:13:24
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Some things are before, some are during, some are after.
00:13:26
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It's very much a montage of his memories while he goes on this journey, this car journey that we'll talk about.
00:13:38
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The actual timeline of the book is relatively brief.
00:13:42
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It's like a few weeks, essentially, from the time that Mr. Faraday, the American, that doesn't matter much,
00:13:50
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purchases the home and Stevens is going on this journey to go see an old housekeeper.
00:13:56
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Essentially, the book is a series of anecdotes and memories of his.
00:14:01
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While he's on the road.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:14:03
Speaker
Exactly.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:14:05
Speaker
This was my third time reading it.
00:14:08
Speaker
Whoa, that's a lot of, I mean, I know you reread occasionally, but that's a lot of rereads.
00:14:12
Speaker
I love this book.
00:14:13
Speaker
There are two books that I
00:14:16
Speaker
yearly consider is it time for a reread it's this and the autobiography of benjamin franklin nerd um i what was interesting about this uh what i what i love about the reading is stevens is first and foremost like completely out of touch with the world right just unaware
00:14:46
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And nowadays, we would almost certainly call this neurodivergence of some form.
00:14:53
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Right.
00:14:53
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Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:14:54
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And just an inability to understand the way he's not he's certainly not deliberately or maliciously ignoring people around him.
00:15:03
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This is how he knows to act.
00:15:06
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Right.
00:15:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:07
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Yep.
00:15:07
Speaker
This is very similar to.
00:15:11
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The Murderbot series by Martha Wells that I think we will have to cover at some point.
00:15:16
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I believe they made that a series.
00:15:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:19
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Yeah.
00:15:19
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And it really resonates with me.
00:15:21
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These things that I'm like, oh, my gosh, I've absolutely been in that situation.
00:15:25
Speaker
Wow.
00:15:26
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And I think I think almost all of us have to some extent.
00:15:28
Speaker
But the extent here is just off the radar.
00:15:32
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Right.
00:15:33
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Right.
00:15:33
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Yeah.
00:15:34
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Super, super high level view.
00:15:36
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Not talking about it point to point.
00:15:38
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We are observing.
00:15:40
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Stevens, the butler, confronting these memories that are very human and authentic interactions that I think everybody can recognize from their own lives.
00:15:52
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Obviously not the literal interactions, but the weird, you know, thinking later, oh, did I respond correctly there?
00:15:59
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The ability to not rewrite history, but explain away something that we did.
00:16:08
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I think to say to live with ourselves is also too strong, but essentially, you know, to be okay with these memories and not sit there just beating ourselves up constantly.
00:16:17
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Yeah.
00:16:17
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Yeah.
00:16:18
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That's no, that's no way to live.
00:16:19
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Right.
00:16:20
Speaker
Nope.
00:16:20
Speaker
Correct.
00:16:21
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Much like both atonement and importance of being earnest, which had nearly identical settings, you know, somewhere in the English countryside, similar timings, earnest was a little bit earlier.
00:16:34
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Atonement was nearly the same timeframe.
00:16:37
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The manners and conversation tone lend themselves to really, really subtle situations that on the surface, like I said, on the surface, it seems like it's about a butler.
00:16:47
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On the surface, these situations seem absurd to us simply because that's not the way we comport day-to-day life in 2025 America or anywhere else, I assume.
00:16:59
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But Ishiguro manages to wrestle these scenes with
00:17:05
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into a position that forces us to think, what would I have done?
00:17:11
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What would I have said?
00:17:13
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And I think I'm going to argue universally.
00:17:17
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Someone will hopefully read it and disagree with me.
00:17:19
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I would love that.
00:17:20
Speaker
But I'm going to say universally, our knee jerk reaction would be, I wouldn't have done that.
00:17:25
Speaker
That's insane.
00:17:26
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Why did we do that?
00:17:28
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And then we have to step back and go, well, no, I have a lot of context.
00:17:32
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I understand intimately because of the point of view of the rest of the book, why he did what he did, why he said what he said, you know?
00:17:42
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And it's consistently like these kind of mini gut punches in a good way to remind us it's everybody else's first time on this big rock too, right?
00:17:55
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Yep, yep.
00:17:56
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And everyone's, we must presume, just trying to do their best.
00:18:01
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Yep.
00:18:02
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And I think that's the absolute brilliance of the writing of this book.
00:18:08
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It is nearly hysterical.
00:18:11
Speaker
I mean, depending on how much you like awkward people in wordplay, but it will go from this mundane interaction to just a crushing circumstance so quickly.
00:18:27
Speaker
Right.
00:18:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:29
Speaker
It's fantastic.
00:18:30
Speaker
This was also interesting.
00:18:31
Speaker
I believe my first reading was six years ago, so 2019.
00:18:37
Speaker
So it's two or three years between each reading.
00:18:40
Speaker
And each time a different little anecdote or memory rings more true to me.
00:18:47
Speaker
Really?
00:18:48
Speaker
Which is very interesting to me.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:52
Speaker
And basically every time I cry at something.
00:18:55
Speaker
Really?
00:18:55
Speaker
It gets you?
00:18:57
Speaker
It really makes you think.
00:18:59
Speaker
What got you this time?
00:19:01
Speaker
You know, Stevens, he never talks about a mother, but his father is also an esteemed butler.
00:19:08
Speaker
Right.
00:19:08
Speaker
Clearly failing in his old age, Stevens brings him onto his staff basically to keep him employed and is just constantly pushing away the facts being presented to him that his father's health is failing and he can't do what he once could.
00:19:24
Speaker
And he has just put this man on such a pedestal his whole life that he's unable to see that.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yep.
00:19:31
Speaker
Who cannot relate, you know, not necessarily with a parent, but with some figure, right?
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:37
Speaker
Which in and of itself, magnificent.
00:19:40
Speaker
And then as Stephen's father, and you can just picture this, this stilted father son relationship built on years of almost certainly not discussing the
00:19:52
Speaker
Anything of merit, right?
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah, yep.
00:19:56
Speaker
And finally, he's much in agreement.
00:20:01
Speaker
He's like, hey, the house better be running good.
00:20:03
Speaker
What are you doing?
00:20:03
Speaker
Are you, you know, I'm fine.
00:20:05
Speaker
I can come help.
00:20:06
Speaker
You better make sure you're doing your job.
00:20:07
Speaker
And he's like, yes, father, of course, father.
00:20:09
Speaker
Then finally, his father's on his deathbed and for the first time tries to access this emotional connection that he's clearly avoided for, we must presume, seven decades.
00:20:22
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:20:23
Speaker
And at this point, Stevens is unable.
00:20:25
Speaker
Right.
00:20:27
Speaker
And just has to leave the room and is not present when his father passes away.
00:20:31
Speaker
And you're just like, again, who among us does not have some relationship somewhere?
00:20:39
Speaker
That would be totally different if we had had that conversation two months, two years, two decades ago.
00:20:46
Speaker
Right.
00:20:47
Speaker
It's, oh, I cry at that part every time.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:50
Speaker
Every time.
00:20:51
Speaker
It's a good one.
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:53
Speaker
This is also the book that I have purchased the most copies of to give to other people.
00:20:59
Speaker
I believe I've purchased and given five copies of this book now.
00:21:03
Speaker
Wow.
00:21:04
Speaker
I just, I love it.
00:21:05
Speaker
And I am so, so interested in, because I feel very certain that other people will not resonate most with the exact same parts that I do.
00:21:15
Speaker
And that's kind of, maybe this is my version of a horoscope.
00:21:21
Speaker
Don't tell me your star sign.
00:21:23
Speaker
Tell me what Stephen's memory punches you in the gut hardest.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:28
Speaker
That sounds like it would work pretty well for you, actually.
00:21:31
Speaker
I think it would actually do wonders for me.
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
This is my Myers-Briggs for the world.
00:21:37
Speaker
This was kind of my fun fact for this episode, really just something I thought was fascinating and will not spoil.
00:21:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:46
Speaker
Will not spoil what happened.
00:21:48
Speaker
The story was written with a different ending.
00:21:52
Speaker
And again, Ishiguro, he wanted to be a professional musician and eventually just realized that's not the life I was meant for.
00:22:01
Speaker
It's actually an incredible quote.
00:22:02
Speaker
It was like along the lines of I'm not, he didn't use the word showboaty, but it was something like that.
00:22:09
Speaker
I'm not showboaty enough.
00:22:10
Speaker
I belong in like a tweed jacket with elbow patches.
00:22:15
Speaker
Heck yeah.
00:22:17
Speaker
But he wrote an ending for this book.
00:22:20
Speaker
And after listening to a Tom Waits song, it affected him so much.
00:22:26
Speaker
He was like, I need to change the ending.
00:22:28
Speaker
Wow.
00:22:29
Speaker
And I thought that was just so cool.
00:22:31
Speaker
And again, I left the song out so that people couldn't spoil themselves.
00:22:36
Speaker
And I'm now realizing that the question, one of my questions that I want to ask you probably will anyway.
00:22:42
Speaker
But that's fine.
00:22:43
Speaker
Progress, not perfection.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:22:45
Speaker
That's the book.
00:22:46
Speaker
That's the book.
00:22:48
Speaker
I'm really glad to hear you describe it this way because I was very excited to watch this movie because I know that you liked Kazuo Ishiguro.
Film Adaptation: 'Remains of the Day'
00:22:57
Speaker
He's on our list a couple of times because you liked this book so much.
00:23:01
Speaker
So I was excited to read it.
00:23:03
Speaker
And I'm interested to hear, or was interested to hear, that the sort of vignettes really packed a punch because I, unfortunately, watching the movie, which is extremely lauded as well, so I'm in the minority here,
00:23:17
Speaker
didn't feel those wallops very strongly.
00:23:20
Speaker
I'll talk about this a little bit more, but the tone of the movie is really dark and heavy.
00:23:28
Speaker
And I think it's maybe because many of the scenes at the sort of manor that he works at take place during a conference or several conferences where white men are discussing
00:23:39
Speaker
the ideals of fascism.
00:23:40
Speaker
And so I've found myself being really, I guess, drawn to those parts of the movie, so much so that when we switched to some of the social happenings, like the tonal shifts there just didn't gel for me.
00:23:55
Speaker
And I was like, I couldn't really feel everything I was supposed to feel for Stevens because I was so busy being like,
00:24:01
Speaker
that guy said he likes Hitler.
00:24:03
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:24:04
Speaker
Like we moved on a little too quickly from that, that part of the story there.
00:24:10
Speaker
Um, is that, do you, do you see like full conversations happening between the gentlemen in the movie?
00:24:16
Speaker
I wouldn't call them full conversations.
00:24:18
Speaker
There's one where the American, I think he's supposed to be a senator, Jack Lewis, just reams everybody.
00:24:25
Speaker
He just cleans their clock.
00:24:27
Speaker
And it's certainly the longest monologue at any of these conferences that you get to sit with.
00:24:32
Speaker
Really interesting casting, too.
00:24:33
Speaker
It was Christopher Reeves, who was best known for playing Superman, which I think was super, super intentional that they had the American...
00:24:40
Speaker
Interesting.
00:24:41
Speaker
With a moral compass, play that role.
00:24:43
Speaker
And in the movie, that's who ends up buying the house.
00:24:47
Speaker
Oh, not Lord Faraday.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, I assume it's just because they didn't need to add another American character, necessarily.
00:24:56
Speaker
Anyway, to take a few steps back, the film adaptation came out in 1993, so another fairly quick turnaround.
00:25:03
Speaker
We've talked about several that were quick turnarounds.
00:25:06
Speaker
Directed by James Ivory and written by Ruth Prar-Jibvala.
00:25:11
Speaker
Stars Anthony Hopkins as Stevens.
00:25:15
Speaker
Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton.
00:25:18
Speaker
Like I said, Christopher Reeves as Jack Lewis.
00:25:20
Speaker
And then Hugh Grant, actually, sort of pretty early on in his career.
00:25:24
Speaker
I know you're a Hugh Grant head because you like Love Actually.
00:25:27
Speaker
Correct.
00:25:28
Speaker
And about a boy.
00:25:30
Speaker
And about a boy.
00:25:31
Speaker
He plays the, is it a nephew of the homeowner?
00:25:35
Speaker
Oh, oh, um, yeah, his godson.
00:25:39
Speaker
Oh, I wrote it down.
00:25:40
Speaker
Cardinal Reginald.
00:25:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
Yes, godson.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:25:45
Speaker
Oh, that's a great casting.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah, and he's also said in interviews that it's the best movie he's ever made.
00:25:51
Speaker
There's certainly an argument.
00:25:53
Speaker
Wow.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:55
Speaker
And then I thought in the casting, I thought it was kind of fun too.
00:25:58
Speaker
There's a few cameos from people that ended up starring in Game of Thrones.
00:26:02
Speaker
So just if there's any eagle-eyed Game of Thrones followers out there.
00:26:06
Speaker
Steven Sr. is played by Peter Vaughn, who was Maester Eamon.
00:26:11
Speaker
Interesting.
00:26:13
Speaker
The sort of wizardy guy at the Night's Watch.
00:26:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:16
Speaker
And then Lizzie, who is one of the housekeepers that's brought in later in the movie, Lizzie Hull.
00:26:23
Speaker
was played by Lena Headey, who played Circe.
00:26:26
Speaker
Wow.
00:26:28
Speaker
The movie was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, as well as nods for Ivory, Emma Thompson, and Anthony Hopkins.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it was a box office success.
00:26:37
Speaker
Looking into it, I feel like that's mostly due to the popularity of the book.
00:26:40
Speaker
The book was a really, really big deal.
00:26:43
Speaker
When it's like a really, really big book, that tends to drive a lot of people to the box office.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
So pretty successful movie that was kind of...
00:26:53
Speaker
had an interesting road to being made.
00:26:54
Speaker
It was filmed in many private residences that aren't seen in many other films because their producer, Ishmael Merchant, was known for being extremely persuasive.
00:27:03
Speaker
So he would just have meetings with these families or estates that owned these estates and talk them into letting him film this movie here.
00:27:14
Speaker
So the sets in this movie are not overused and they certainly don't feel stuffy or anything.
00:27:20
Speaker
And one of those estates, or one of those homes, belonged to the third Earl of Halifax, who was a prominent politician in the 1930s in England, and actually got
00:27:31
Speaker
a shout out in the movie.
00:27:32
Speaker
There's sort of a throwaway line about the Earl of Halifax was pleased with the silver or something like that.
00:27:38
Speaker
So kind of cool to see how they wooed these people into letting them shoot in their homes.
00:27:44
Speaker
He's in the book.
00:27:45
Speaker
The Halifax?
00:27:46
Speaker
Earl of Halifax?
00:27:47
Speaker
Lord Halifax.
00:27:48
Speaker
Oh, funny.
00:27:49
Speaker
But the home he was born in was used for the movie.
00:27:53
Speaker
That's so cool.
00:27:55
Speaker
Yeah, just kind of a weird twist of fate thing.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, I liked it.
00:28:00
Speaker
I didn't love it.
00:28:00
Speaker
I didn't fully understand the connection between the two storylines.
00:28:04
Speaker
And I wrote in my notes that I didn't understand the connection between A and B stories or which is which because you spend a lot of time, there are huge chunks where you don't see Miss Kenton in the movie.
00:28:16
Speaker
So when she pops back up and they have another awkward semi romantic interaction, you're like, Oh, God, I forgot that's what it is.
00:28:22
Speaker
I really thought that this butler was gonna like,
00:28:25
Speaker
whack a Nazi or something.
00:28:26
Speaker
And it's just not what this is, you know?
00:28:31
Speaker
At what point did it start to feel like a repressed love story?
00:28:35
Speaker
I think when I finally keyed in was when she caught him reading a romance novel.
00:28:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:41
Speaker
And he basically tells her to buzz off.
00:28:44
Speaker
He tells her he's reading it to better his conversation skills.
00:28:50
Speaker
Right.
00:28:51
Speaker
Right.
00:28:51
Speaker
Well... It is also not clear until...
00:28:55
Speaker
literally the very end that that is a repressed love story in the book.
00:29:00
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:01
Speaker
That's I wonder if it was not a romance novel, I would have probably wouldn't have crossed my mind.
00:29:07
Speaker
But like a woman catching a man reading a romance novel at this time definitely made me think that maybe there was something going on here between them.
00:29:17
Speaker
It actually would also be very telling if to me,
00:29:21
Speaker
It was not a repressed romance until the very end.
00:29:24
Speaker
And, um,
00:29:27
Speaker
And maybe some other folks were able to pick up on it a little bit.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:31
Speaker
Which would really be on brand with why I love this character so much.
00:29:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:35
Speaker
That's all right.
00:29:36
Speaker
That's great.
00:29:37
Speaker
But the performances, you know, for all the flaws that I pointed out, the performances were heartbreaking.
00:29:42
Speaker
And the sets obviously were beautiful because there were people's homes.
00:29:46
Speaker
Costumes were beautiful.
00:29:47
Speaker
It's a good movie.
00:29:48
Speaker
I found the cinematography to be a little bit boring, which is kind of a bummer.
00:29:53
Speaker
For me, because when you have beautiful sets and costumes and things like that, I would have expected it to take a little more advantage of those things that are kind of just sitting around.
00:30:03
Speaker
And the other thing that I found difficult about this text, I think you're supposed to be kind of appalled by Stephen's behavior until you're clued into the fact that he just doesn't get it.
00:30:15
Speaker
For that chunk of time when you don't understand Stephen's, it's really hard to enjoy this because you just are like, what is going on with this guy?
00:30:23
Speaker
See, I wondered how they would translate that to the screen because it is abundantly apparent in the book because everything is solely his perspective.
00:30:33
Speaker
And I mean, it sounds nigh impossible to translate that to a motion picture.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure that it was the right choice.
00:30:42
Speaker
I mean, like I said, it got a bunch of money and a bunch of Oscar nominations.
00:30:47
Speaker
So it was the right choice.
00:30:48
Speaker
But I don't know if it was the right choice for me necessarily.
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair.
00:30:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:53
Speaker
My fun fact, which will play into one of our discussion questions here, the role of Miss Kenton is one of the only major motion picture roles that Meryl Streep is known to have missed out on, to have lost out on.
00:31:05
Speaker
And she reportedly fired her agent over it.
00:31:07
Speaker
Wow.
00:31:09
Speaker
Because she wasn't told.
00:31:10
Speaker
She found out from the press when it was announced that Emma Thompson got it.
00:31:14
Speaker
Wow.
00:31:16
Speaker
Fun bit of Hollywood lore there.
00:31:17
Speaker
She would have been so good in that role.
00:31:20
Speaker
I think it would have been a different movie, but yeah, she would have been good.
00:31:26
Speaker
Dang.
00:31:26
Speaker
But with that, let's jump into our discussion questions.
00:31:29
Speaker
Let's ping pong.
00:31:30
Speaker
So why don't you start, Chris?
00:31:32
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:31:33
Speaker
Well, this is exactly what we were just discussing.
00:31:36
Speaker
It was my immediate question when I found out they had even made this into a movie.
00:31:40
Speaker
How on earth did they handle this point of view?
00:31:43
Speaker
Like, obviously, the dialogue.
00:31:45
Speaker
Even in the book, it's between two people, whatever.
00:31:48
Speaker
But to me, so much of the poignant nature of the writing is that we only have Stephen's non-omniscient narration.
00:31:59
Speaker
Well, I think it helps in a movie.
00:32:01
Speaker
You learn who your main character is pretty much instantly because it's usually the first voice you hear, the first face you see.
00:32:08
Speaker
And that's sort of how they T.S.
00:32:09
Speaker
up here.
00:32:10
Speaker
The movie opens with Stephen's reading the letter that Kenton wrote him.
00:32:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:32:18
Speaker
So you're sort of tied to him right away, and you just follow him through...
00:32:24
Speaker
I don't want to say adventures because they're not as adventures, but through his duties as a butler in this British manner.
00:32:31
Speaker
And you see that he's extremely dedicated to it.
00:32:34
Speaker
And yeah, like I said, I mean, maybe they don't do enough to establish that it's from his perspective necessarily, because...
00:32:41
Speaker
Pretty early in the film, we cut to a sort of flashback where he hires Miss Kenton, and he's very rigid with her right away, and she's like, what the heck is going on here?
00:32:49
Speaker
This is not usually how homes are when I'm hired to be a housekeeper.
00:32:53
Speaker
And so he's definitely made to be, he comes across as sort of unlikable.
00:32:58
Speaker
So to answer your question, handling point of view,
00:33:02
Speaker
They just follow him.
00:33:03
Speaker
And I think, unfortunately for me, that's one of the things that doesn't really work.
00:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, that sucks.
00:33:08
Speaker
That is a genuine disservice to this text.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:12
Speaker
Seeing these things as memories from him, too, that's the other thing, is that there's not really an indicator that he's reminiscing.
00:33:19
Speaker
You're kind of just watching the storylines of the fascist conferences unfold while you're also watching the storyline of him traveling to meet Kenton at the end of the book.
00:33:30
Speaker
So I guess it's sort of implied that he's reflecting on it, but just wasn't clearly enough for me that I felt like all of these stories were going to be tied up with a nice bow.
00:33:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:33:41
Speaker
So what do they do in the book, though, to make it clear that he's
Character Age Dynamics
00:33:45
Speaker
your guy?
00:33:45
Speaker
It's just so clear in the book because he's speaking first person, and each of these instances is very neatly dovetailed.
00:33:54
Speaker
We're talking about this, this reminds me of a time that this happened, or...
00:33:59
Speaker
I feel this way because of this instance.
00:34:03
Speaker
There's no ambiguity at all.
00:34:05
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:05
Speaker
That we're going from here's current time, me on my way to see Kenton, to here's this thing that happened this other time.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I'm not usually a fan of narration in movies, like voiceover narration, but I wonder if it maybe would have benefited just sprinkled throughout to give us a better peek into his psyche.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think it needed it, honestly.
00:34:27
Speaker
I just wasn't getting it.
00:34:28
Speaker
And I'm guessing, I don't know, I don't know that this movie necessarily knew that he was...
00:34:33
Speaker
what we would call neurodivergent either because this movie came out in 1993.
00:34:37
Speaker
It was following the success that Ishiguro had paved the path for.
00:34:43
Speaker
So I'm curious if maybe the movie wasn't terribly endeared to him either.
00:34:49
Speaker
That's the power to me is at no point, like obviously at some of these decisions, you're like, that's objectively shitty, but it is presented in such a captivating way that you are,
00:35:03
Speaker
again, immediately have to think, but who am I to criticize?
00:35:10
Speaker
I already know all of the thought process that went into it.
00:35:13
Speaker
It is at the very least understandable that a human did what he did at that time.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:20
Speaker
Okay, well, one of my questions, I was curious if the ages of the characters was brought up at all or how important it was because there's a few, some are behind the scenes and some are right in the middle of the scenes, things that really stood out to me here.
00:35:35
Speaker
First of all, Cardinal Reginald, or what did we just decide his name was, Hugh Grant's character.
00:35:40
Speaker
Hugh Grant is in his early 30s when this movie is made and his godfather is asking in one of the funnier moments that I'm going to spoil here,
00:35:49
Speaker
His godfather requests that the butler has had the birds and the bees talk with him.
00:35:54
Speaker
And that just seemed, I realized this was a long time ago, but that seems really late for the birds and the bees talk for a young man.
00:36:03
Speaker
And then the second thing I wanted to point out was that, speaking of that Meryl Streep casting, at one point when she was being considered for this movie, Jeremy Irons was being considered for the role of Stevens.
00:36:15
Speaker
There is very little age difference.
00:36:17
Speaker
It's like six months or something between Irons and Streep.
00:36:20
Speaker
Hopkins and Thompson, however, have 11 years between them.
00:36:25
Speaker
And I think that that especially with Stevens being the boss and being a man, I think that that adds an extra dimension to their relationship and is maybe one of the reasons why you don't see it as a repressed love story, because they're also in a place of work, and he's in a position of power, and he's 11 years older.
00:36:43
Speaker
So there's like
00:36:44
Speaker
a thousand reasons why they shouldn't be together, not just because he can't express his feelings.
00:36:49
Speaker
So I'm just curious, now that I'm finished word vomiting, whether the ages of any of these characters was a prominent part of this story.
00:36:57
Speaker
The very short answer is I don't recall ever knowing anyone's age explicitly.
00:37:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:05
Speaker
That being said,
00:37:07
Speaker
I did actually have all of these same thoughts that you just pointed out.
00:37:10
Speaker
It seems at least somewhat implied that Stevens is older than Kenton.
00:37:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:17
Speaker
I chalked it up entirely to this is a different time when people weren't living as long.
00:37:24
Speaker
Less crazy then between those two.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:37:29
Speaker
But no, they never explicitly discuss this is how old each of these people are.
00:37:35
Speaker
Or at least not in a meaningful way, not in a way that I believe was intended to convey meaning.
00:37:40
Speaker
That could be me missing meaning.
00:37:41
Speaker
That's well within the realm of possibility.
00:37:45
Speaker
Reginald, it is funny that you say that.
00:37:47
Speaker
He is certainly younger than his 30s when this takes place.
00:37:54
Speaker
But I do believe deliberately, awkwardly old enough for it to be comical.
00:38:01
Speaker
Okay, it was supposed to be funny.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yes, yes, I believe so.
00:38:05
Speaker
Interesting.
00:38:06
Speaker
Especially the discussion when he finally sits down with them, when Stevens finally sits down with Cardinal and thinks they're on the same page.
00:38:14
Speaker
And then it is revealed they absolutely are not.
00:38:17
Speaker
I believe he is intended to be.
00:38:19
Speaker
I mean, he's about to get married.
00:38:21
Speaker
But no, both of those, I did have both of those same thoughts.
00:38:24
Speaker
And yeah, back to my first answer, doesn't matter.
00:38:29
Speaker
a material difference in the storyline.
00:38:32
Speaker
Okay, good to know.
00:38:33
Speaker
But that is interesting that we had the same thoughts.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah, it is.
00:38:37
Speaker
Okay, this is the one that I thought I was avoiding spoiling, but cannot, because I just need to know.
00:38:42
Speaker
So as it's going, what did you think would happen when Stevens finally reunited with Miss Kenton?
00:38:50
Speaker
I expected that she would reveal at that point that she was married, had been married, and was happy, and
00:38:57
Speaker
he was like the only one that missed out.
00:39:00
Speaker
The only one that was thinking about what could have been.
00:39:04
Speaker
I'll avoid saying what did happen, but that's not exactly how things unfolded.
00:39:08
Speaker
And it's not exactly where things stop either.
00:39:11
Speaker
Definitely neater, a little bit more conventional than the story that we ended up with, I suppose.
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:17
Speaker
And again, that's the part that Ishiguro actually rewrote after listening to a Tom Waits song.
00:39:22
Speaker
Um,
00:39:23
Speaker
So I agree.
00:39:23
Speaker
I will, I actually won't even reveal what my thoughts were coming up to it, because I think it's a very tasty morsel to run into on your own.
00:39:31
Speaker
So everyone listening, read the book, find out for yourself.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:36
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:39:36
Speaker
And then the last question I wanted to ask was, how does the book portray Stephen's turmoil over his disagreement with his employer's politics?
Stephen's Internal Conflict
00:39:46
Speaker
Because there's several times when it comes up in the movie that like, hey, you know, you're working for a fascist and
00:39:52
Speaker
you know, this guy backs Hitler and things like that, right?
00:39:54
Speaker
And he sort of brushes it off by saying like, it's not his place to judge or to listen to the conversations that he's having.
00:40:00
Speaker
But I felt like I was picking up on, and maybe this was just Anthony Hopkins' performance.
00:40:05
Speaker
I felt like I was picking up on Stevens hesitating a little bit, like he wanted to say more, but wasn't going to condemn fascism outright vocally.
00:40:15
Speaker
I just wanted to know what that looked like in the book.
00:40:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a very appropriate question.
00:40:20
Speaker
And he's certainly Stevens is certainly not portrayed as condoning this by any means.
00:40:26
Speaker
It is a thousand times more nuanced than we can possibly describe because of, again, all of this build up and dialogue regarding how he views his profession, what he views his duty as.
00:40:39
Speaker
And I think that's the point in making it such a black and white.
00:40:44
Speaker
We can all as observers uniformly agree
00:40:48
Speaker
No, fascist bad.
00:40:51
Speaker
And I think that's exactly why that's the topic that was chosen to be this crux.
00:40:56
Speaker
So that other characters, exactly as you said, could come in and say, yo, this is a bad thing.
00:41:03
Speaker
And again, you are walked through Steven's perspective in such a way that you cannot simply...
00:41:12
Speaker
condemn him as being part and parcel with this activity.
00:41:17
Speaker
And you say, okay, I see why he reacted the way he did to this objectively bad thing.
00:41:23
Speaker
Incredible.
00:41:24
Speaker
I cannot imagine another author doing exactly what he did with this content.
00:41:28
Speaker
It was spectacular.
00:41:30
Speaker
Super nuanced.
00:41:31
Speaker
Yes.
00:41:34
Speaker
Okay, well, tell me about recommendations.
00:41:36
Speaker
Do you recommend people read this book?
00:41:39
Speaker
Yeah, let's get into it.
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah, recommendation.
00:41:42
Speaker
This book is a 15 out of 10.
00:41:45
Speaker
Everybody should stop listening to you and I right now.
00:41:49
Speaker
Go buy this book.
00:41:50
Speaker
It's not a long read.
00:41:52
Speaker
We have like three minutes.
00:41:53
Speaker
Turn us off.
00:41:55
Speaker
Go buy this book.
00:41:57
Speaker
Go read it.
00:41:59
Speaker
Okay, no, wait until the podcast is over and go buy the book and read it.
00:42:04
Speaker
It's incredible.
00:42:05
Speaker
I recommend it to everybody.
00:42:07
Speaker
The last time I was up in Minnesota, I found a copy while I was at a used bookstore with my sister and my nephew, and I just turned to him and said, if I buy this for you right now, will you read it?
Recommendation & Personal Reflections
00:42:17
Speaker
And did they?
00:42:18
Speaker
I don't know if he's read it yet.
00:42:19
Speaker
I should check back in.
00:42:20
Speaker
But he said he would, so I bought it for him.
00:42:23
Speaker
So Eli, if you're out there, I'm coming for you.
00:42:26
Speaker
Eli, come on.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, phenomenal book.
00:42:29
Speaker
I recommend it to people constantly.
00:42:32
Speaker
I feel like I've got an inkling here, but how about the movie?
00:42:35
Speaker
I don't want to not recommend it because I didn't think it was bad, but I think I would recommend it to specific groups of people, fans of romance and particularly period romance dramas.
00:42:47
Speaker
This made me think a lot of Pride and Prejudice because the first, I don't know, half of, or really more, most of that story is a lot of repressed drama.
00:42:56
Speaker
feelings.
00:42:58
Speaker
It's not very steamy or smutty.
00:42:59
Speaker
So if that's what you're into, that's not what this is.
00:43:03
Speaker
No, this is like a 0.2 out of 10 on the spicy scale for sure.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:07
Speaker
But I do think it's a good, the one that got away story, especially for audiences, I think over 35 or so.
00:43:14
Speaker
I think it helps to have a little time under your belt to be a little more patient in life, to have experienced a few more heartbreaks in life.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:21
Speaker
I think that's a very appropriate assessment.
00:43:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:24
Speaker
So it does come with a recommendation, but just with one or two asterisks there.
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah, fair.
00:43:30
Speaker
But the last segment that we wanted to kind of introduce, we wanted to share what we rate these texts on Letterboxd and Goodreads.
00:43:38
Speaker
So, Chris, what do you rate this on Goodreads?
00:43:41
Speaker
Yeah, love it.
00:43:42
Speaker
This got a five stars the first time I read it and the second time and this time.
00:43:48
Speaker
which very few books do.
00:43:49
Speaker
That means I 100% intend to reread it, which I do.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:53
Speaker
Do you think you'll come back to it in two or three years like you have?
00:43:57
Speaker
That's the current pattern.
00:43:58
Speaker
I hope I get back to it next year again.
00:44:01
Speaker
Wow.
00:44:01
Speaker
Okay, cool.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:44:03
Speaker
This is like an all-timer for you.
00:44:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:44:05
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:06
Speaker
I gave it three and a half stars on Letterboxd.
00:44:09
Speaker
I would definitely watch it again.
00:44:11
Speaker
I'd like to watch it with somebody that read the book that could...
00:44:14
Speaker
guide me through or talk me through some of those scenes where the tone got wonky or or where you're just not seeing stevens in the light that you're supposed to because it did take me a while to sort of settle into the movie but once i did i i was in it and i can't i can't deny that it's a good story and it makes you feel things yeah you know yeah yeah i think that makes a lot of sense i think this would be way better with someone with like
00:44:39
Speaker
just a sniff or context for you context yeah totally for the first like hour or so of the movie i was like fuck i'm gonna have to tell chris that i did not like this story that he really really likes but that didn't end up being the case thankfully good yeah good stuff all right well thank you for joining us for our conversation on remains of the day we have an exciting one up next chris do you want to share with our next