Relative Values starring Julie Andrews

Some spoilers within. Relative Values is one of Julie Andrew’s movies that I somehow missed seeing until very recently. Made in 2000 from the Noël Coward play of the same name. Set in the 1950s we are in the same world as Howard’s End and Gosford Park where we find one woman, Julie Andrews, living in a vast sprawling estate surrounded by an endless array of servants. Chief among these servants is the Butler, played brilliantly by Stephen Fry who appears to be born to play a know-it-all Butler. It’s possible that this would have been a lot funnier if…

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Keeping Mum Rowen Atkinson and Maggie Smith

Rowen Atkinson gets top billing in this odd little black comedy about a woman who finds it easier to kill off annoying people than to put up with them. The story is set in the British village of Little Wallop, population 56, or something of that nature. Curiously, the town has a fairly large school and good group of bullies for so small a population. But that is really beside the point.We start off on a train in 1960 or so. A seemingly nice young woman is on holiday. We get a shot of her trunk in the baggage car.…

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