American Friends (1991)

My wife saw this movie was scheduled to air, uncut, on the MGM channel and recorded it for me, knowing that I'm a big Monty Python and Michael Palin fan. In fact, I'm such a Python fan that I was surprised to find a film starring Palin and Connie Booth (and featuring Simon Jones and Charles McKeown) that I'd somehow never heard of. I'm guessing this movie wasn't very well promoted in the U.S. Which is not surprising, as it deals with the very British subject of life at Oxford university in the nineteenth century and features dramatic roles from actors known on this side of the pond strictly for their comedy.Palin plays Mr. Ashby, a teacher at Oxford who has devoted his entire life to his work and is in line to be voted the next president of the college when the elderly current president meets his end. Despite his protests, Ashby's colleagues insist that he take a vacation. While hiking in the Alps, he meets a single woman his own age (Booth) and her adopted daughter. For reasons that are never explained both women fall instantly and deeply in love with him. Seems pretty unlikely, but there wouldn't be a film without it (and, apparently, this is all based on a true story).Any hint of a romantic relationship would ruin Ashby's chances at the college presidency (fellows at the college are expected to remain celibate), so when the women follow him back to Oxford it becomes a scandal. Naturally Ashby's chief rival for the presidency, Oliver Syme, does everything he can to add fuel to the flames. Somehow, no one seems to notice that Syme himself is a womanizer.In the end, Ashby has to decide whether to keep trying to climb the career ladder at the college or leave and start a new life with one of the two women.So this obviously isn't a Pythonesque comedy - other than a few wry smiles it had hardly any humor at all. But the scenery is beautiful (especially the scenes in the Alps) and the atmosphere and acting are well done. The pace is a bit slow, but it's a period drama so that's to be expected. In the end I enjoyed the movie, even though it wasn't at all what I thought it would be.

This is an excellent movie, with a brilliant performance by Michael Palin as Mr. Ashby. The reality is he was an honorable man (unlike his main competitor to be President of Oxford (Oliver Syme (Alfred Molina)). Keep in mind, he was also a Reverend, and knew things like desiring a woman such as Elinor (Trini Alvarado) was a sin and since the vow of celibacy at Oxford was very important in those days, he knew he would be a hypocrite if he was urging others to follow a policy, he himself did not want to follow). When the movie took place (1866) they did not even allowing women on campus, and it would take until 1959 until they were admitted as students. As it turned out, he made the right decision choosing Eleanor over Oxford, because the movie is based on his Great grandfather Edward Palin and as he said about the woman Elinor is based upon (her name was Brita) "We married in Paris in 1867 and she has made me the happiest of men." Based upon the many laughs that Palin (and Monty Python) have brought to people down through the years, it was a good choice indeed.

I confess that I've never found Michael Palin very funny. His desperate mugging in "A Fish Called Wanda" marked a particular low. And his many, many travel documentaries have at times stretched to breaking point his ability to say something interesting about his journeys. But, and against type, his finest work as performer and writer is "American Friends" and it is very fine indeed. Based on the true story of his great grandfather, it is a wonderful, gently comic evocation of the claustrophobic lives - and obligatory bachelorhood - of 1860's Oxford University academics (the repressive world which spawned Lewis Carrol). A wonderfully rich, gently comic performance too by veteran Robert Eddison as the dying head of the college, surrounded at the end simply by his college fellows. Entirely devoted to academic excellence and religiosity, only occasional male horseplay for some ever interrupted their high-minded bachelor lives. The natural candidate to take over as head of the college, the Palin character, thus seemed fated to live and die within its confines just as had his predecessor. Reluctantly persuaded to take a short walking summer holiday alone in the (beautifully filmed) Swiss Alps, suddenly into his late bachelor life comes Womanhood, Beauty - and Love - in the shapes of a middle-aged American lady and her young ward. Again a wonderful poignant dignified performance by Connie Booth; her young ward's youth and beauty making her suddenly aware that her own looks and prospects are now both very much on the downward slope.An inauthentic jarring note was Alfred Molina's portrayal of Palin's academic rival; so openly leering, crude and dissolute, it was difficult to imagine that he could have coexisted with his high-minded fellows - unless they were so very unworldly that they failed to understand him.Curiously very reminiscent indeed of "Goodbye Mr Chips" (1935), arguably American Friends is a far better film; subtle, gentle and beautiful. Palin was a student at Oxford and there is affection, respect and an intense attention to period feel in his portrayal of the character and the place.

Remembering watching American Friends, this is the first time I see Michael Palin at a more serious role. I completely enjoy watching this film. Palin plays an Oxford professor who falls for an American woman (Connie Booth) and her daughter (Trini Alvarado). A wonderful acted film and the scenery is breathtaking to watch. Well worth the effort to see.