no payoff
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Remains of the Day
cannonr — 14 years ago(June 24, 2011 09:01 PM)
Awfully long time telling the same story over and over again, to have no real payoff in the end.
We really get no advancement after his father's death, they just keep showing us different ways that the situation is sad.
Also, I never felt that it was a very good love story. You sorta knew that's where they had to go, but they didn't prove it to me. Only by seeing other love stories did you know what their feelings had to be at such and such a point in a love arc.
Very good acting of course, and the Lord Darlington story was WAY more interesting than the butler's. Wish they'd have made a different movie, about that guy's struggle. -
melissa_bizz — 14 years ago(September 15, 2011 05:36 PM)
There is payoff at the end, perhaps just not the payoff you were hoping for. The love story is of unrequited love, love unexpressed, a love that was stifled and smothered.
"I can't sit down. These aren't my pants." -
Percivalx — 11 years ago(August 21, 2014 06:50 AM)
There was a payoff. Mr. Stevens gave up on a lot as a human being because of his duty as a butler.
What did he do when his father died? He went to see him for a few seconds, then went back to his duty.
What did he do when that old Nazi sympathizer asked him those questions? Mr. Stevens did his duty and said he couldn't be of help in those matters.
And most prominent of all, he sacrificed love for the duty of his job.
His job as a butler always came first. Which makes the story heartbreaking. He couldn't be a "real" human being.
That's what I got from the story.
"Let us be crooked, but never common." -
Drooch — 11 years ago(December 31, 2014 03:06 AM)
The payoff was this scene:
The new screenwriter stupidly omitted it from the final draft, then Hopkins intervened and said he'd only do the film if they included it. They shot it, but the director betrayed Hopkins and cut it from the edit. Baffling that they ruined their own film by removing the scene that makes sense of the tile, and features one of Hopkins' most powerful performances. -
butaneggbert — 10 years ago(January 23, 2016 03:11 PM)
I couldn't disagree more. The build isn't loud or broadly telegraphed, but it is there - it is absolutely there.
The peaks are wrenching. But they never involve screaming or slapping or storming out. They're more appropriate to these restrained/constrained characters. Even Miss Kenton's more demonstrative nature is curbed by the strength of Stevens' determined impassivity. That's not painted in broad stripes with a marquee and a marching band - but it's there, and it's a tiny death in its way.
For me the portrait of years of dashed opportunities was so relentless, built so steadily, that the single shot of their hands pulling apart in the rain at their last meeting almost brought me to tears. Kicked me right in the soul.
We're so used to the movie-writing equivalent of orgasms or gunshots. The whole point here is that there's never any such release. It's the ongoing loss that makes the portrait tragic.
Satisfaction would be not just beside the point - it would blunt it.
Nothing to see here, move along.