The film is set in Victorian England in about the 1860s, with a parallel storyline in contemporary times based on the actors making the film ca. 1980. The novel, which I read long ago, has three endings and no contemporary storyline. The film has one Victorian-era ending and a modern ending that emulates one of the Fowles' Victorian storylines.
Charles Smithson (Jeremy Irons) is a paleontologist looking for fossils along the shore in Lyme Regis. He is a follower of Charles Darwin and is descended from wealth. He becomes engaged to the daughter, Ernestina Freeman (Lynsey Baxter), of a wealthy businessman, Ernest Freeman (Peter Vaughan). He becomes aware of an enigmatic local woman, Sarah Woodruff (Meryl Streep), who is said to have had a brief affair with a French Lieutenant who deserted her and returned to France. Thus she has a bad local reputation. She works as a companion to a local widow, Mrs. Poulteney (Patience Collier), a rigid Victorian who dismisses Sarah for walking alone beneath the cliffs. Charles becomes very enamored with Sarah and gradually falls in love with her. Much of the film follows this emerging relationship.
After Charles spends a night with Sarah in Exeter, he returns to Lyme, breaks his engagement to Ernestina, and returns to Exeter to get Sarah and marry her. However, Sarah has disappeared into London. He spends three years looking for her until, ultimately, she reveals her location to him; she has been living as a widowed governess.
The parallel story is the affair that the actors, Anna (Meryl Streep) and Mike (Jeremy Irons), have while making the film. As the filming is ending, Mike wants to continue the relationship, but Anna pulls further and further away.
This was a much-anticipated movie when it came out, partly because people wondered how such a complex novel could be made into a movie. The result was very unlike the novel in having a quite straightforward storyline while adding some complexity with the modern storyline.
This is still fairly early Meryl Streep--she is only 32 when the film was released. However, she had already received an Academy Award nomination for "The Deer Hunter" and won an Academy Award for "Kramer vs. Kramer." She was nominated for an Academy Award for "The French Lieutenant's Woman." This film was Jeremy Iron's first major movie.
The film was well-received when it came out but has lost some of its glitter over the years.
Charles Smithson (Jeremy Irons) is a paleontologist looking for fossils along the shore in Lyme Regis. He is a follower of Charles Darwin and is descended from wealth. He becomes engaged to the daughter, Ernestina Freeman (Lynsey Baxter), of a wealthy businessman, Ernest Freeman (Peter Vaughan). He becomes aware of an enigmatic local woman, Sarah Woodruff (Meryl Streep), who is said to have had a brief affair with a French Lieutenant who deserted her and returned to France. Thus she has a bad local reputation. She works as a companion to a local widow, Mrs. Poulteney (Patience Collier), a rigid Victorian who dismisses Sarah for walking alone beneath the cliffs. Charles becomes very enamored with Sarah and gradually falls in love with her. Much of the film follows this emerging relationship.
After Charles spends a night with Sarah in Exeter, he returns to Lyme, breaks his engagement to Ernestina, and returns to Exeter to get Sarah and marry her. However, Sarah has disappeared into London. He spends three years looking for her until, ultimately, she reveals her location to him; she has been living as a widowed governess.
The parallel story is the affair that the actors, Anna (Meryl Streep) and Mike (Jeremy Irons), have while making the film. As the filming is ending, Mike wants to continue the relationship, but Anna pulls further and further away.
This was a much-anticipated movie when it came out, partly because people wondered how such a complex novel could be made into a movie. The result was very unlike the novel in having a quite straightforward storyline while adding some complexity with the modern storyline.
This is still fairly early Meryl Streep--she is only 32 when the film was released. However, she had already received an Academy Award nomination for "The Deer Hunter" and won an Academy Award for "Kramer vs. Kramer." She was nominated for an Academy Award for "The French Lieutenant's Woman." This film was Jeremy Iron's first major movie.
The film was well-received when it came out but has lost some of its glitter over the years.