The Dresser 2004

British playwright Ronald Harwood adapted his autobiographical stage drama into this loud, bellowing film about a World War II-era Shakespearean theatrical troupe saddled with an aged, blustery star: brilliant but unreliable--and at the end of his tether. The actor's effete assistant works diligently to get his master costumed for a production of "King Lear"--during an Air Raid yet!--though both men are losing their grip on the unraveling situation. Harwood, who worked as dresser to actor Donald Wolfit in his waning years, gives his leads a haven for broad overplaying--and, indeed, not-shy Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay chew the scenery. Not especially elderly at this point in his career, Finney is far too robust and quick-thinking to play the exasperating "Sir". Director Peter Yates cannot modulate Sir's moods and bouts of coherency in a way that makes sense to us, so that in one scene he's stopping a train with the commanding echo of his voice while in the next he's falling apart at the seams. With such a wreck of a human being in the midst of failing health and aptitude, one would assume a dedicated assistant would go to great lengths to protect his boss (and his future), yet servant Courtenay prods and badgers and goads Finney's Sir to carry on rather than rest. Courtenay, who played his role on the stage (and was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar alongside Finney), is far more attuned to his role and, eventually, his bleating commands achieve the only real feeling in the film. This duet, thankfully, isn't a head-pecking contest, and scenarist Harwood is careful not to fall into the proverbial love-hate pattern (which could have easily happened judging from the first act); however, without a juxtaposition of servant versus celebrity, there's nothing much to behold in this portrait except for the deterioration of narcissism