The Newsletter of the David Mamet Society  Fall 1999 • Volume 6 • ISSN 1095-9629

THE WINSLOW BOY

 

Adapted for the screen and directed by David Mamet.
Nigel Hawthorne, Rebecca Pidgeon, Jeremy Northam. April 1999.

To date, reviewers have expressed a mixture of surprise and delight over David Mamet’s sixth outing as film director, The Winslow Boy. A G-rated British period piece that, on the surface, represents a world far apart from the environs of the petty criminals and con men so frequent in his "typical" works, the film is vibrant, moving, and dramatically sophisticated. One might even be tempted to claim that Mamet has discovered a new voice with this film, adapted from Terence Rattigan’s 1946 play of the same title. Despite the lavish costumes, British accents, and Edwardian manners, though, Mamet’s The Winslow Boy emphasizes the thematic elements in Rattigan’s work that parallel his own concerns with integrity and the difficulty of principled behavior in a culture that values achievement at the expense of moral responsibility. While this film may represent a new look for Mamet, the "first principles" embodied in the story of the Winslow family and its vain struggle to maintain domestic harmony while taking on the British constitutional monarchy mark this work as definitively "Mametian."

The story revolves around the expulsion of 13-year-old Ronnie Winslow (Guy Edwards) from the prestigious Osbourne Naval Academy for the alleged theft of a five-shilling postal order. Ronnie’s early return home for Christmas recess occurs as his family has gathered to celebrate the engagement of Catherine Winslow (Rebecca Pidgeon), an outspoken suffragist, to John Watherston, a promising young Army officer. This tableau of the happy family quickly dissolves as family patriarch Arthur (Nigel Hawthorne) learns of his son’s unexpected return through an innocuous statement made by the family’s housekeeper. Arthur confronts his son and, convinced of the boy’s innocence, devotes himself to clearing his son’s and his family’s name.

Arthur’s and, subsequently, Catherine’s commitment to obtaining justice for the youngest Winslow makes Mamet’s film a study in "the cost of holding a principle." In pursuing the case, Arthur must sacrifice not only the tranquility of upper-middle-class family life, to which he and the rest of the Winslows have become accustomed, but also the tuition for older son Dickie’s (Matthew Pidgeon) Oxford education and Catherine’s dowry. The strain on the elder Winslow and the family is apparent throughout the film–Arthur becomes more haggard, his wife Grace (Gemma Jones) doubts his motivations, accusing him of "pride, self-importance and brute stubbornness," and Catherine, after an ultimatum from her fiancee’s father, must break off her engagement with Watherston. Arthur and Catherine disagree about retaining Sir Robert Morton (Jeremy Northam), a prominent attorney and member of Parliament whose unabashed conservatism flies in the face of Catherine’s radical political commitments. Both come to realize, through the prodding of family attorney Desmond Curry (Colin Stinton), that their only hope lies with an attorney of Sir Robert’s reputation: given that the school has refused to consider any further arguments on behalf of Ronnie, the only course left to the Winslows is the granting of a Petition of Right, which would give the family permission to sue the Admiralty and, by extension, the British monarchy.

Mamet’s addition of scenes in Sir Robert’s offices and on the floor of the British House of Lords not only takes the film outside of the Winslow household (where all of Rattigan’s play is set) but also into the public sphere of early twentieth-century British politics. Despite his focus on the stress within the family, Mamet constantly but subtly reminds his audience that the Winslow case, in real-life, became a rallying point for the British public. Throughout the film, Mamet interposes shots of "promotional material" created for public consumption, pencils, posters, umbrellas, and other paraphernalia inscribed with variations on the slogan "Save the Winslow Boy." As the tension among family members grows, these visually ironic images suggest that, for the public, "Winslow Boy" becomes a symbol of national unity; the people actually involved in the case must struggle with ever-increasing complexities of family loyalties, individual desires, and castigation from the prominent social circles with which the Winslows had considered themselves associated. Each must reflect upon the motivations that drive them, and both Arthur and Catherine, despite their dedication to the principle inscribed in the Petition of Right, "Let Right be Done," find themselves ready to give up the fight. The granting of the Petition renews their vigor, however, and each of them finds an uneasy peace with their chosen sacrifices.

Such a story of sacrifice in the name of justice has its melodramatic overtones, as Mamet himself noted in an interview on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show, but confident direction and superb performances keep The Winslow Boy from slipping into the category of "emotional pornography" that the author criticizes in a number of his non-fiction writings. While certain critics have chosen the label "Mamet-speak" for several of the performances (particularly Pidgeon’s), the cast aptly conveys the conflict between normative expectations and the difficult personal emotions of these characters. All of Mamet’s actors work in the understated style of his "practical aesthetics," but that style is particularly suited to characters not allowed to give full voice to emotional longings. An example of such distance between language and feeling occurs as Arthur and Watherston discuss the latter’s proposal of marriage to Catherine. As long as their conversation remains in the prescribed context of prospective groom and father of the bride, their speech comes easily, though with a hint of a social "script" underlying it; when the business of the proposal is concluded, though, each man finds himself at an uncomfortable loss for words. Arthur’s repeated tapping of his cane, a signal to Grace and Catherine that they may rejoin the men, provides one of the many moments of unexpected yet thoroughly delightful humor present in the film. Typically, Mamet keenly recognizes in this story the potential for humor in socially scripted behavior, and his cast makes the most of these moments. These actors also represent with finesse those moments when a character, because of social roles, must mute feelings in favor of a more "appropriate" (i.e. subdued) response. When Arthur informs Dickie that he will not be able to pay for his education beyond the current term, the young man’s reaction illustrates the expected self-control and reasonableness, although he clearly feels hurt by the sacrifice of his own prospects. Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of this film is that no one performance stands above the others; under Mamet’s direction, Hawthorne, Pidgeon, Northam, and the rest turn in an ensemble performance, a beautifully structured rendering of Rattigan’s story.

While the Winslows win their case against the Admiralty, the audience recognizes that this victory is not simply poetic justice; it commands a high price from each member of the family and those surrounding them. The film never wavers from its portrayal of the Winslows as making conscious choices to proceed even when faced with horrific losses as a direct consequence. In bringing The Winslow Boy to the screen over fifty years after its stage debut and almost exactly fifty years since the original film version, Mamet not only reprises the story of a family who acts courageously in the face of injustice but does so in a dramatically courageous manner. "Melodrama" may be a convenient label for this film, but, as is par for the course, Mamet continues to challenge his audience with multiple layers of fruitful complexity.

JEFF MCINTIRE-STRASBURG
Webster University