Metroland (1997)

I found this one on Netflix streaming movies, I wanted to see it because it is an early Christian Bale movie. He was probably 21 during filming, and Emily Watson who plays his wife was probably 28. They actually play a couple in their early 30s. It is a smart movie, basically a character study to see what happens when an old friend shows up and tries to undo everything.The movie starts in 1977 which is their present time, Christian Bale is Chris with a wife, a daughter, a house with a vegetable garden, and a train ride to his work in the city. He lives in an area generally known as Metroland. Just about exactly all the things that 14 years earlier he and his friend Toni said they would never be interested in.His wife is Emily Watson as Marion . His friend that shows up is Lee Ross as Toni, who is appalled that Chris has, in his words "sold out", abandoning the carefree lifestyle both of them said they wanted. So much of the story is Toni working hard to get Chris to be unfaithful to his wife and family and get carefree again. I found myself truly detesting Toni, and that means Ross did a fine job with that role.Much of the middle of the movie is a long flashback to 10 to 12 years earlier, when Chris, fluent in French, lived in Paris as a photographer, only wanting to make art. But he never really sold anything. It was there he met pretty French Elsa Zylberstein as Annick, and for a while they had a great love affair. But when Chris told her he had met Marion, Annick just picked up and left, even though his relationship with Marion was just friendly. Naturally he and Marion got married, moved back to England just outside of London, and had a happy if sometimes boring life.The story was mostly Chris examining his own life, the doubts instilled by Toni, and finally coming to the realization that he liked his life, he didn't want to get out of it, and he sent Toni on his way without him.

The acting was OK. It's refreshing to see the protagonist with his 'boy body' before he found steroids in 'American Psycho'! Now he just looks like everybody else.This story is not original. The theme has been explored a thousand times in a thousand films that were better. I hate movies portraying other times. It's always impossible to 'recreate an era'! When will Hollywood learn that? The mood, the people, the mores are gone forever. Everyone wants innocence back but you cannot erase the smugness and skepticism of now. It just creeps through everything we do. This is at best someone's dream of what some 1960s young people thought and discovered. I notice that nobody ever tells stories about working class people anymore. The working class never had the luxury of these choices. There was no question about life--it was just survival. One went to school if one got loans or scholarships or worked his way through. One went to war if one was drafted. One went to factory if one was below average. One got married or lived with parents. The act of getting a license to drive or see a movie was special. You took nothing for granted. Your parents didn't adore you; they put up with you. You were most likely an accident. You rarely questioned anything because what you had was such a struggle to obtain and the daily chore of trying to keep it was huge. Just once, I'd like to see this investigated in film. It's a reminder that the film industry is owned/run by wealthy people of the Mideast faith and they delight in reflections of themselves only.

Based on the novel by Julian Barnes and directed by Philip Saville (Masterpiece Theatre's The Buccaneers, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil miniseries), Metroland is a charming little British movie. It's a character study of Chris, played by Christian Bale (American Psycho, Batman Begins, Rescue Dawn), in an early role that is a nice change of pace for him. Bale captures this sweet, geeky, funny every-man character brilliantly. In 1977, now a married man with a baby girl, Chris lives in the suburb of Metroland, his hometown, where he vowed as a teenager that he would leave and never return. Every working day he takes the mass transit rail out of the suburb to London to his job at an advertising agency. He wanted to be a globe-trotting photographer, but settled for this. Chris seems content with his life, but when his ne'er-do-well chum Toni, played by Lee Ross (Secrets and Lies), shows up, Chris has a midlife crisis, albeit a young midlife crisis. Toni's appearance brings back the memories of his carefree life before marriage and responsibility: during the 1960s, when he lives in Paris, takes photographs, and has his first serious girlfriend, Annick (Elsa Zylberstein). Bale plays a naive, love sick man to Annick's worldly, sexy French woman. They start an intense sexual affair, and Chris is quite smitten with Annick until he meets Marion—all decked out in go-go boots, liquid eyeliner, and a That-Girl hair flip. Chris is attracted to Marion mainly because she can see through some of his foolishness. In one conversation between the two—reminiscent of It's a Wonderful Life, in which James Stewart informs Donna Reed that he doesn't want to marry or have kids, but then gleefully gives in, kissing Reed—, Chris tells Marion that he wants to stay on in Paris and doesn't want to get married and have children. Marion cruelly replies, "You're not original enough to." Chris reconsiders his relationship with Annick, who he has nothing in common with—only lust. And he chooses Marion. In one of many funny scenes, Chris is in bed with his wife, Marion, played by Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves, Hilary and Jackie, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep). He starts kissing her sweetly, but she is too tired for that. He says to her, "I can't remember the last time." "Yesterday morning," she replies. Then he says, "Yeah, we used to do it three times a day." She says, "It only happened once, and you complained about being sore a week afterwards." He smiles and replies, "Sore, but very smug." This changes Marion's mind, but they are soon interrupted by their daughter's cry--such is the life of a family man. During Toni's visit, Marion makes her dislike for him clear to Chris who defends his lifelong friend. Toni is bound and determined to lead Chris astray, so that Toni can prove to himself that he made the right decision not to settle down. Toni plays his part well as the devil on Chris' shoulder. At his party, Tony convinces one of his free minded girlfriends to give Chris a shag. Just as Chris is considering consummation, he imagines Marion being carried away in an ambulance. When Toni happens to pass by the room, Chris realizes that Toni put her up to it—and is insulted and leaves. It shows how even the closest, longest friendships can die in adulthood when people choose to go down different paths. Later Chris suspects something happened between Marion and Toni, and he gets into fisticuffs with Toni. Marion tells Chris that he made a pass at her; she was somewhat tempted, but refused. As Toni gets ready to leave town, Chris and he make up somewhat half-heartedly. While taking a bath together, Chris tells Marion about the girl at Toni's party who he nearly slept with, and, of course, Marion has an ongoing joke of telling Chris to go ahead and have an affair. Marion then reveals to Chris she had a one night stand long ago and tells him that it won't happen again. We don't know if this is true, or if Marion is only trying to spice things up—because as a result of her confession, they have passionate sex. And afterwards she kids him about having sex with the girl at the party.Christian Bale's mutton chops and flared collars and pants legs give the movie a real retro feel. Bale has some great comedic moments here. In one of two very good scenes, Toni takes Chris to a punk rock concert, but Chris hates punk and only tolerates it by getting drunk and stoned. Chris comes home quite randy and keeps trying to pull Marion down on the bed in his inebriated state. The other scene is Chris' first date with Annick in which he conspicuously kisses her—and pulls her into bed awkwardly. The female characters teeter on being stereotypical. Annick and Marion are the archetype of the all-knowing, all-beautiful, all-witty woman to the archetype of Chris as the bumbling, sex obsessed male. Emily Watson's performance elevates Marion's character, so she doesn't turn into a shrew—we can sympathize with her as Chris shuts her out as he daydreams about his glory days of youth. We also feel sympathy towards Annick as she goes from being the experienced one in the relationship to being the needy and jealous one as Chris matures. I describe Metroland as a British cozy romantic dramedy—if such a thing exists. Some memorable scenes and some funny moments make the film worthwhile. As does the good acting between Bale and Watson, who make it more than a forgettable flick. Bale and Watson have good chemistry and repeat that again in the 2002 Sci-Fi cult classic, Equilibrium. Metroland is a movie you rarely see now: a movie that deals intelligently and realistically with themes of adulthood.

I liked this movie. Its stars, Christian Bales and Emily Watson, shine with a refreshing innocence.It is one of those pictures where you can regret the time wasted watching it, or reflect on what it means to settle for the suburban lifestyle with its daily commutes to the city, the crying baby in the middle of the night, the sometimes jaded sex. All the time knowing it will continue until you retire.And to look back at the freedom of the young years in Paris with "sex in the afternoon" and not much money. Toni, played by Lee Ross, looking dissolute and hedonistic, blows back into the life of Christian Bales ten years later and tries to make him take the road less travelled by going around the world and living free and easy with no ties.There are then a series of many flashbacks to the carefree years. I liked the way Chris takes the time to evaluate his current life. It is not all about duty and responsibility but choices too and there is a bit of a zinger in the last few scenes. 7 out of 10. A thoughtful adaptation of the novel.