TWO FOR THE ROAD
UK, 1967, 109 minutes, Colour.
Albert Finney, Audrey Bepburn, Eleanor Bron, William Daniels, Claude Dauphin, Judy Cornwall, Jacqueline Bissett.
Directed by Stanley Donen.
Two for the Road looks at times like a glossy romance of a rich English couple holidaying in France. At times it is this. But the film is a bitter-sweet look at a modem marriage. The point of view is the presem with the couple rich, with one rather neglected child, ambitious, used to each other, hurting each other. They remember the past, not in any real ordered sequence, but in flashes, the origin of the marriage, early love and lack of money, old holidays, later infidelities. Thus the film works on several time levels all at once and this cross-cutting of time makes ironic comment on the marriage and on the couple.
Screenplay is by Frederic Raphael (Darling, Nothing But the Best, Far From the Madding Crowd). The two stars are good, but remind us of their other performances. English Eleanor Bron (Bedazzled, A Touch of Love, Women ir Love) adds comedy to her American Mom role. The film was directed by StanleyDonen? whose subsequent films included Bedazzled and Staircase.
A look at modern marriage, both comic and sour, worth discussing.
1. What was the significance of the road symbol for the whole film? The credits need the road and the road signs. What tone did this use give to the film - serious, facetious, clever, ironic?
2. How is the structure of the film explained? How were the different levels of time indicated? Was the film easy to follow? What was the effect of intermingling the different times? Was there a centre pair, of reference which measured the significance of these times?
3. The film was a study of marriage in its origins, growth, development and stagnation. Would it have been deeper and more incisive if the narrative had been straightforward and chronological or did the film benefit by showing marriage not as lived but as a mixture of aonfusec memories? Why?
4. Did the real ages of Finney and Audrey Hepburn make the flash-back sequences hard to take or were the too actors convincing in each period?
5. How well did the film make its comments obliquely - e.g. the contrast of attitudes to money, travelling the same road, the difference in th meals at the same place over the years, beds?
6. Why did they fall in love during their hitch-hiking? (Was the mislaid passport an effective symbol?) Did they have enough basic love for a successful marriage?
7. How did the couple change over the years? How did the film indicate this? Did the trip with the American couple (overdone but funny in itself) add anything to the film? Did it offer any contrast to the central couple? Why was it included - and such devices as the speeded-up tour?
8. Why did the couple quarrel so much? What did the husband's adultery with the girl in the bar and the wife's affair reveal about them?
9. Did the film resolve itself well? Did they have a future together?
10. How successful had they become? How important were wealth and position to them? How likeable were they by the end of the film?
