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I’m glad I re-read the book fairly recently, as ‘September’ has quite a large cast of characters, and several interleaved subplots. The main focus of the book is a planned party - a huge one with marquees and Scottish country dancing and a disco. But the storylines involve people who are invited rather than the party-givers themselves.
Vi (Virginia McKenna) is, to my mind, the linchpin of the story. She is in her late seventies, but lively and active in the community. Her son Edmund (Michael York) is quite stubborn. He also works extremely hard and has made a lot of money in his business. He has a daughter, Alexa (Emily Hamilton), from his first marriage, who lives in London. Edmund also has a young son, Henry (Thomas Szekeres), by his second wife Virginia (Mariel Hemingway). Virginia is younger than Edmund, and from the United States, and they have very different ideas about raising children.
Then there are Archie (Edward Fox) and Isobel (Jenny Agutter), impoverished gentry who take in American visitors to supplement their income. Archie was injured in military service and lost a leg; he suffers from nightmares and terrible self-esteem. A recurring theme of the film is the way that Scots tend to button up their emotions and struggle on. There’s a mystery surrounding Archie’s sister Pandora, who ran away twenty years earlier, and this is gradually revealed during the film.
I thought Archie and Isobel very believable with excellent on-screen chemistry. I was less entranced with Edmund and Virginia. Both play their parts well, but it was hard to see any chemistry between them. And while … who played Henry did so extremely well, he isn’t the sensitive, highly intelligent Henry of the novels. I liked Alexa, but was a tad confused that her boyfriend’s name has been changed from Noel to Neil, and didn’t find him particularly realistic.
One of the most underrated but powerful people in the movie is Lottie (Angela Pleasence), sister of Edie (Anna Cropper) who works for Vi. Lottie has some kind of mental condition, but it’s not alzheimer’s; she is not at all forgetful. Instead she is the antithesis of the buttoned-up Scots. She watches everyone and everything, often stealing around gardens after dark, or listening at doors, and then reports on what she considers to be immoral or ‘wicked’ ways. She has a lot of strange mannerisms and Henry is, justifiably, rather scared of her. And it’s Lottie’s ‘chinwags’ with different people that brings some hidden truths to light.
Then there’s Pandora (Jacqueline Bisset), breezing into the movie in time for the party, shocking and/or delighting everyone. She is outspoken and generous, yet also unpredictable and self-centred. The novel is inevitably cut significantly, and in the film we don't meet Pandora until this point. Her back-story is somewhat changed as well, perhaps to keep it simpler and more dramatic.
There’s not a great deal of plot as such, despite so many subplots. This is a film (like the book) of relationships and character development. The ending is bittersweet, and I thought extremely well done. I was a little shocked to realise that the film was nearly three hours long; it was long past my bedtime when it finished, yet I had been gripped, caught up in the lives of the people in the story.
There’s some lovely scenery, though I gather the film was shot in Ireland rather than Scotland. The rating is PG which reflects the lack of any strong language, violence or scenes of intimacy. But the beginning and end scenes are somewhat traumatic. I don’t feel that this film would be appropriate for children under the age of about 12; in addition to the loch-dredging, there are several references to off-stage bedroom scenes, or images showing the morning after, and there’s a fair amount of mild bad language.
Overall I enjoyed this film very much, and would recommend it to anyone who likes Rosamunde Pilcher’s novels, or this kind of poignant character-based drama.
Review copyright 2018 Sue's DVD Reviews
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