The Holly and the Ivy (film)

Cast

Criticism

"Russian screen writer Anatole de Grunwald imbues this poignant adaptation of Wynward Browne's West End stage hit with Chekhov's spirit and relocates the Russian's genius for deftly drawn characters to a rambling Norfolk parsonage on Christmas Eve. Apart from a few introductory scenes in the capital, director George More O'Ferrall does little to hide the story's stage origins. But the family's confinement in a remote, snowy village reinforces the sense of detachment that Richardson's offspring have mistakenly imposed upon him and allows the screenplay to focus on such Chekhovian themes as the vagaries of emotion, the agony of disillusion, the breakdown of communication and the desecration of authority. The performances and clipped enunciation may seem antiquated to those reared on the kitchen sink realism that was about to transform British filmmaking. But to austerity audiences, a clergyman accepting his daughter drowning her sorrows [in alcohol] after personal tragedy would have seemed daring in both its honesty and its humanism. So while The Holly and The Ivy now radiates a nostalgic glow, it is actually a revealing record of a country on the cusp of the dramatic social, economic and cultural change that has, sadly, made faith, fidelity and family feel like relics of a distant past."