Plenty

Meryl Streep plays Susan, a younh Englishwoman for whom nothing can ever be as exciting or fulfilling as her experiences with the French Resistance in WW2. For her, the next two decades are a drab letdown. David Hare adapted his own play for Fred Schepisi’s film and at times – as often with Hare – he thumps his points home.

But Streep succeeds in making this self-centred woman strangely sympathetic, and she’s backed by a incomparable cast: Charles Dance, Sam Neill, Ian McKellen, Tracy Ullman and John Gielgud. And that epilogue? Heartbreaking.