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![Winter Guest (1997) [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FGF1XXGSL._SL160_.jpg "Winter Guest (1997) [VHS]")
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Staring:
Phyllida Law,
Emma Thompson,
Sheila Reid,
Sandra Voe,
Arlene Cockburn
Director:
Alan Rickman
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $3.61
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780780621633
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
ISBN: 0780621638
Label: New Line Home Video
Manufacturer: New Line Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Line Home Video
Release Date: 1999-04-27
Running Time: 108
Studio: New Line Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1997-12-24 |
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Visually Stunning, 2009-05-26
This movie was visually stunning and was a great movie for folks looking for good character studies. It was both serious and comedic. Although it might not appeal to the action movie set, it is a movie that tells the audience a story and takes you on different emotional journeys. Great movie by director/actor Alan Rickman!
 Not very memorable, 2009-12-11
I found the characters annoying, especially the bickering mother and daughter, and the two foul-mouthed school-skipping boys. The plot....well there just wasn't much of one. I'm not sure how the four plot threads were supposed to fit together. Not one of Emma Thompson's more memorable performances. As for the allegedly starkly beautiful Scottish coast, to me it was just stark. Subtitles would have been useful; I missed a good part of the dialogue because of the heavy accents. Judging by the ratings here, many folks loved this movie. I was simply underwhelmed.
The Winter Guest, 2008-10-06
I'm not really sure what attracted me to this film, but once I started watching it I couldn't stop. Perhaps it was the dreariness of the setting, or the obnoxiousness of the dialog, but I guess the main reason I watched was to see if a plot ever realy developed. I kept hoping that something of significance would eventually happen, but it really never did.
The characters are quirky and shallow. You don't know much more about them than when the film began. The older mother kept asking her adult daughter if she would be moving to Australia. To me it was a simple yes/no question, but the daughter couldn't come out and give a yes or a no. The two elderly women heading to a out of town funeral don't do much to carry the stroy, either. The young man and woman have their moments, but they, too don't add much to the story. The two young boys who skipped school have the most involved conversation, though it becomes tedious in its own right.
In the end, nothing really jumped out at me and said this was something that warranted the time I spent watching it. If you like boring quirky movies then this should appeal to you. If you want to see characters develop and move through some type of conflict to a resolution, then look somewhere else.
Much to Gasp About..., 2009-12-24
Some films will have good acting, but no positive support from all the behind-the-scenes people. In some cases, the reversal happens. Some films will have Actors saying and doing things that aren't quite matched up to the talents of the Actors. That isn't the case here. The on-screen talent, as well as the off-screen participants are perfect in what they contribute to the finished product.
The story was one of heart-breaking happiness (like that combination?). One minute delving into the morbid truths found in relationships only to fade into quiet, loving moments between Mother and Daughter. In this particular story, the relationship between Mother and Daughter is the strongest plotline. The settings are perfect for the icy cold relationship shared by these characters, until a breeze of warming air comes into play.
Do they solve the world's problems in this film? Not a chance, but watching this film can give you a glint of hope for positive relationships and better days.
A Wonderful Film.
The Winter Guest, 2007-12-05
"Come in from the cold" the tagline to 1997's The Winter Guest invites us, and viewers who accept this faint beckoning soon look on as the cast of this unique production from Scotland does just that in one singularly metaphorical fashion or another. This is a quiet movie that says little with the spoken word and yet still tells one of the most poignantly rich stories ever committed to film. The Winter Guest takes place all in one frozen winter day in a town in rural Scotland, and brings four intertwined vignettes together as it imparts its barely whispered and unforgettable tales. There is a grieving young widow's resistance to her mother's attempts to brings her out of her deep depression; there are two boys who skip school and retreat to the frozen seashore to hide out for the day in this the last winter of their already fleeting childhood; there are two elderly ladies who bravely stare back at death by traveling to funerals of people barely known to them; and there is an eccentric girl, Nita, who forces a boy she fancies---Alex, the son of the widow, Frances, played by Emma Thompson---to finally take notice of her via a playfully serious confrontation amid the ice-covered streets of the little town they share. The Winter Guest would simply never have been made in America, nor could it have been. It is a story that requires patience, sensitivity and insight into the human condition, and for the investment of all of these, returns the sort of intelligently psychological motion picture that is all but extinct in this decade.
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