Caught this one recently on the French TV under the title "A La Recherche du Passé". Now, I hate dubbing at the best of times, and it was almost a complete waste of time watching this film which, due to its subject matter, was dubbed into French. I say almost, as at least I managed to make acquaintances with the story which I found very interesting. It does not seem to be available on DVD here in Europe, in spite of its including a very well known English actress, Julie Walters. Seeing the film in English, would, I assume, enable the spectator to notice the differences between the Liverpool accent and that of New York. The dubbing of the film into French led me to believe that there was a lot of coarse language in the film - highly regrettable, but there again, perhaps that is the way people speak in Liverpool nowadays. Anyway, coarse dialogue is offensive to me ! The story line was very interesting indeed and the comparison of civilizations even more so but for the English side of it, they did appear to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. I am not saying these characters don't exist in real life, but not all English are like this - as to Liverpudlians, I did have some in my family ( now dead ) but I don't quite remember them quite as crude as these ! I had one or two questions about the plot which seemed a little illogical at times and had a little difficulty sympathising with the main character, despite his absolutely awful plight. I was more at home with Julie Walters and the character of Maureen. The character of Mavis was AWFUL and I wouldn't touch her with a barge pole ! The two little boys, though were quite adorable. I am surprised the film has not had more success and been issued on a DVD - it is even better than "Secrets and Lies" which is on a similar theme ( but without the illness ) and seems to have been issued on a DVD in its own right. To conclude then, a film with a large number of positive points, not forgetting excellent picture quality, but which I would dearly love to see in English to savour the dialogues !!
Review of Strange Relations
