Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27226 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-07-12
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
In George Orwell's semi-autobiographical novel, to "keep the aspidistra flying" meant something on a social as well as a personal scale. This film adaptation pares material down into a more concise chapter in the struggle for artistry as experienced by Gordon Comstock (Richard E Grant). At New Albion Publicity he's the best copywriter they've ever had, and long-suffering girlfriend Rosemary (Helena Bonham Carter) knows it. Unfortunately, Gordon quits to concentrate on writing poetry. Post-WWI London is reluctant to accommodate him however, and not even the aspidistra plant at his lodgings will give him an answer despite screaming obscenities at it. Veering between successes and failures, this is the story of coming to terms with a society that no longer has a place for free-ranging artists. Grant is the perfect victim of these circumstances, and even when you're berating his selfishness, you can't help but sympathise. The production design of the film is superb with wonderful use made of the few remaining suitable period locations in London. Populating the scenery are some wonderful cameos, such as Bill Wallis as the contentedly illiterate bookstore owner Mr Cheeseman, and Liz Smith as slightly lecherous landlady Mrs Meakin. --Paul Tonks

Synopsis
Comstock and Rosemary are a typical 1930s couple with modern ideas. He decides to leave his middle class job to become a poet while she works hard to keep her career and their unusual relationship on track. Comstock, however, is desperate to escape that symbol of middle class respectability - the Aspidistra. The story is based on a novel by George Orwell.

Customer Reviews

A pleasant film of a non-great novel
I admire George Orwell more than I admire any other English writer of his generation, but I have (I hope) no illusions about his genius; most of his novels aren't very good, and "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" is not an exception. It's a half-baked, second-rate novel that probably should have been a handful of brilliant essays (and, in fact, probably was - Orwell's essay about working in a bookshop is better-written and more valuable than his fictional depiction of the shop Gordon ends up working in). Nevertheless, I am glad someone decided to make a movie out of it. Richard E. Grant is a glassy-eyed pleasure as Gordon, Helena Bonham-Carter makes the utmost out of a pretty rubbish character (she's no better in the book), and the film has some fine comic moments as well as touches of authentic hideous embarrassment. In the end, though, the book really isn't all that great, and Orwell knew it, requesting that it not be republished after his death. Uncritical Orwell fans will try to deny it, but the faults of the film are just the faults of the book.

A good version of one of Orwell's lesser known films
A good version of a not very well known book by George Orwell. In 1930s London, Gordon Comstock (Richard E. Grant in a not very impressive performance) stars as a copy writer in an ad agency (where he is considered among the best in the trade) who leaves his job in order to pursue his vocation as a poet. That turns out to be a very bad decision, not least because his poetry doesn't arise from mediocrity. His life goes downhill after leaving the ad agency, at least from a material point of view, moving from one bad form of housing to another worse, until he finishes in what 1930s Europe would be the equivalent of a slum. His long suffering girlfriend, Helena Bonham-Carter, accompanies him, but up to a point, and in the end, it is she who makes him go back to his senses. Comstock final embracement of bourgeoisie conformism (which is in the book) leaves something of a bad taste (also, the movie is surprisingly pro life on the issue of abortion). Something I have found also surprising: It has been said that Orwell turn away from the left after his disillusionment with the Stalinist repression of the trotskyites during the Spanish civil war, but this book was written before that war, and Orwell already happily punctures more than a few of the left's sacred cows.

Encapsulating
I read the Orwell book about a while ago and remember loving it, and while I was looking for some Helena-Bonham Carter movies I came across this - and I'm so glad I did.

This tidy and warm movie really inspired me in a way that few movies do. It just struck a chord. Perfectly casted and acted. Richard E. Grant was perfect as the ambitious, though misguided poet, struggling against the classes. It's a story I think most people can relate to. A great presenation of the class system of the times.

A wonderful performance by Carter. I fell in love with her again, having done so in so many of her other movies.

The dvd release is standard with no special features. It's just the movie and nothing else - but that's all that you need. Overlooked, but warm as tea for one with chocolate biscuits ^_^