There’s a point to be made in this 1930s depression satire about money counting for everything and this point is hammered into every aspect of the story, until it gets to be not only redundant but outright irritating to hear. He even considers himself to be a socialist, which is ridiculed by his stodgy mannerisms and snobbish attitude. The upper-class are royally seen through the depiction of Ravelston (Wadham), a wealthy publisher, who has the luxury of having sex in the afternoon with his acid-tongued priggish girlfriend (Vickerage) and living a care-free existence in his spacious townhouse. So he chooses his next residence in a slum where the people have nothing to lose and are free to speak their mind, and social restrictions are not as tensely kept. They show how stuffy and pretentious life is in a suburban neighborhood. The aspidistras in her place seem cold and hostile to the troubled young poet, anyway. She reacts to the poet’s one night drinking binge that got in the papers and got him fired from his Hampstead bookstore clerk job, by kicking him out. When she finds something awry in the world, her nose lifts upward in snooty sarcasm. Meakin (Liz Smith), represents bourgeois values.

His landlady in his middle-class, immaculate flat, Mrs.

The plant acts as a metaphor indicating that the confused young hero of the film can’t escape his middle-class destiny, even when he seeks shelter in the slums of Lambeth.īefore the would-be poet Gordon Comstock (Grant) lived in Lambeth, he dwelt in respectable Hampstead Heath. In the low class Lambeth neighborhood, it is offered to the impoverished bookstore clerk as a sign of affection by his kindly landlady. It’s a hardy houseplant, used in the story to connote middle-class London respectability when placed on the windowsill of a flat. Much ado is made about aspidistra in this comedy adapted from the semi-autobiographical novel of George Orwell. “The uninspired script makes a mockery of Orwell’s intentions to sympathize with an artist who is prepared to make his own way in the world.” Meakin), Harriet Walter (Julia Comstock) Runtime: 101 First Independent/Overseas 1997-UK) Grant (Gordon Comstock), Helena Bonham Carter (Rosemary), Julian Wadham (Ravelston), Lesley Vickerage (Hermoine), Jim Carter (Erskine), Liz Smith (Mrs. (director: Robert Bierman screenwriters: from a George Orwell novel/Alan Plater cinematographer: Giles Nuttgens editor: Bill Wright cast: Richard E. KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING (AKA: A MERRY WAR)

Keep the aspidistra flying review