(Spoilers below)
I'm also a little puzzled by the anemic box office of The Winslow Boy. Although the play starts out very slowly, it picks up once Alessandro Nivola's character enters the picture and is pretty engrossing after that. And the acting by Nivola, Roger Rees, and Charlotte Parry is first-rate and award-worthy. (I thought Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was fine, but she does not have a very interesting role that I'm frankly surprised was one that attracted her interest. I would think she would want to play something other than "the wife.")
I wonder if part of the problem is that the central premise (it is vital to save the boy's reputation over this trivial matter) seems very outdated today. A lot of things happen on "Downton Abbey" in the interest of reputation, honor, and standards, but those are applied through a modern eye, and one can understand the characters' motivations. Here, it seemed a little bit like a big fuss about nothing. Nowadays, there are certainly parents who would make a huge stink about the whole thing, but it would seem an overreaction. In today's world, the kid would in all likelihood just go to another school, and that would be that. The kid is still young enough that it wouldn't affect his college application or anything like that.
A couple of questions: I have not seen any other version of this material. Is the verdict always presented in such an anti-climactic fashion? In this production, there is nothing triumphant about the verdict, but is that the director's choice for this particular production, or is that the typical way that it is presented?
And am I the only one who expected (even hoped) that the boy was guilty after all? I think THAT play would have been very different but I would have enjoyed seeing the complexities behind that.
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