The Way We Live Now

I know I've gotten complaints before about my negative reviews. But I figured out why I prefer negative reviews: I like to give spoilers when I review, and out of respect for the movies I really like, I avoid spoilers. For movies that disgust me, I have no scruples spoiling the plot for two reasons; out of spite for the movie, and in confidence that no one would want to see the movie after I share the spoiler. So with that said...

"The Way We Live Now" was horrible. I'm sorry to say it about an Andrew Davies movie, but there it is. It was an interesting movie, I have to give it that, but the ending is such that you just think, "Wow, I just blew 5 hours of time that I could have spent watching the long version of Pride and Prejudice instead."

There are several interwoven plot lines. First, there's the young lady, Henrietta, who lives in England with a mother somewhat like Mrs. Bennet and a jerk brother (played by Matthew MacFadyen! Mr. Darcy! I'll never be able to watch the new Pride and Prejudice again. Ever). She "falls in love at first sight" with her cousin's ward, Paul (who's in charge of the construction of a railway in America). Paul "loves" her too, and her cousin, Mr. Carbury, is also in love with her. So the two men are at odds because they both want to marry her. Paul has a problem though: he's already engaged to an American woman.

Henrietta's brother, Felix, is a gambler and a cad. He has a woman he flirts with in the the country, and a rich woman in the city that he wants to marry, but only for her money. The woman in the country has a good man who wants to marry her, but she won't marry him because she thinks she's in love with Felix. And the woman in the city, Miss Melmotte, is starved for love and rather odd, and falls head over heels for Felix. Her father, Mr. Melmotte, is a greedy, rich Frenchman who is heading the board for Paul's railway. But Mr. Melmotte doesn't actually intend to BUILD a railway, he just wants to get people to buy the stock and then take all their money.

So. Felix proposes to Miss Melmotte, and tries to get her father's consent. He will NOT consent, because Felix gambled away all his money and is basically penniless, and Mr. Melmotte could get much richer men for his daughter. Miss Melmotte tries to convince Felix to run away with her, because she really loves him, but he only wants the money that she won't get unless she marries with her father's blessing and will not run away until she mentions that she has a lot of money of her own. She steals some money for a train ticket and ship passage, which he spends gambling and getting drunk. While he slouches off home to his mother (who dotes on him in a sickening way) she is trying to meet him. But she is "arrested" for stealing, and taken back to her father, who won't allow her to see Felix. Miss Melmotte manages to get a note to Felix's sister, Henrietta, who delivers the note to her brother and then returns with his message to Miss Melmotte: "he is giving her up. He doesn't love her, and never did." Miss Melmotte is heartbroken.

Paul tries to convince his fiancee, Mrs. Hurtle, to release him so he can ask Henrietta to marry him, but she refuses, and claims that he cannot break the engagement because "only the woman can dissolve an engagement." Finally, she tells him that if he spends one more night with her and takes her to the beach before he goes to Mexico (to oversee the railway) then when he comes back he can choose the woman he really wants. While they're at the beach, they run into Mr. Carbury, who is none too pleased to see his competition in company with another woman after all the trouble that Paul took to "steal" Henrietta from him.

Felix's country woman comes to the city to marry him, but he has no intention of marrying her. He just uses her for a little fun, putting her off about getting married, "Oh, of course, sometime..." He finally blurts out that he never intended to marry her, and she storms off. He chases her, and just then, the good man that STILL wants to marry her shows up and lays Felix flat with one punch. (That was good! Best part of the whole movie!)

Paul comes back from his trip and asks Henrietta to marry him, and she accepts. But Felix knows about Mrs. Hurtle and when Henrietta announces her engagement, he tells her the whole story. She talks to Paul and he tells her that he was trying to break everything off with Mrs. Hurtle, and that he thought it was already over between them when Mrs. Hurtle showed up in England claiming otherwise. Then Henrietta visits Mrs. Hurtle, and Mrs. Hurtle leads her to believe that she and Paul are still involved. So she breaks off the engagement.

Paul finally finds out about the railway scam, and leaks to the newspapers. Mr. Melmotte is ruined and commits suicide. Miss Melmotte, however, is still rich from the money in her own name that she refused to share with her father and goes off to live her life, hardened by Felix's betrayal.

Mrs. Hurtle comes to see Henrietta and confesses that she deceived Henrietta, and that Paul had been faithful to her, at least for the past 2 years. Henrietta still refuses to forgive him. He stops by one last time before he leaves for a second railway opportunity, and she hides on the stairwell while he give her mother all sorts of "I'll always love her" and "I wish her the best" messages. And then he leaves. And she runs after him. And we can only hope they live happily ever after.

And the last shot you see is Felix, with a new conquest in sight.

Miss Melmotte should have found someone to really love her, Henrietta should have married Mr. Carbury, Paul should have been devastated and gone crawling back to Mrs. Hurtle, Mr. Melmotte should have been put in jail instead of the escape of suicide, and Felix should have been left miserable in some way. Or at least shaped up and acting like a man. I didn't like it. At all.

However, the filming was spectacular, the acting was very good and if you don't mind a more "real life" kind of ending, then it's a pretty good movie. Personally, it left me feeling disgusted. But maybe that's just me.

~Lizzie