LP Hartly's wonderfully poignant novel ('The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there'), with its subtle observations of social class and its metaphorical sexual summer-heatwave and zodiacal references, should have been natural territory for director Joseph Losey.
Alas the problem is the adaptation by Losey's celebrated screenwriter Harold Pinter (they collaborated memorably on The Servant and Accident). The shifting chronology is ingenious (Losey even filmed the 'modern-day' scenes on a different film stock to accentuate the difference) but one suspects the ending will leave viewers who haven't enjoyed the book's straightforward narrative structure rather baffled. It makes The Go-Between a coldly formal and dispassionate film, robbing it of the novel's sad revelation of a damaged, wasted life.
And while it can boast a Best-of-British cast, Julie Christie, though delightful, is too old for the heroine. We never get to know her character quite enough. Alan Bates, meanwhile, stumbles a bit with his Norfolk accent. Dominic Guard, however, is very good as the hapless young messenger.
But Gerry Fisher's superlative cinematography is worthy of Constable country (it's set in turn-of-the-century Norfolk), while Michel Legrand's piano score imposes a hauntingly foreboding edge (arguably perhaps a bit too strident).
A good film but not a great one.
Alas the problem is the adaptation by Losey's celebrated screenwriter Harold Pinter (they collaborated memorably on The Servant and Accident). The shifting chronology is ingenious (Losey even filmed the 'modern-day' scenes on a different film stock to accentuate the difference) but one suspects the ending will leave viewers who haven't enjoyed the book's straightforward narrative structure rather baffled. It makes The Go-Between a coldly formal and dispassionate film, robbing it of the novel's sad revelation of a damaged, wasted life.
And while it can boast a Best-of-British cast, Julie Christie, though delightful, is too old for the heroine. We never get to know her character quite enough. Alan Bates, meanwhile, stumbles a bit with his Norfolk accent. Dominic Guard, however, is very good as the hapless young messenger.
But Gerry Fisher's superlative cinematography is worthy of Constable country (it's set in turn-of-the-century Norfolk), while Michel Legrand's piano score imposes a hauntingly foreboding edge (arguably perhaps a bit too strident).
A good film but not a great one.