The Browning Version

Forty-three years after the first screen treatment of Terence Rattigan 's play about a teacher facing the end of his career, Albert Finney takes on the role of Mr. Crocker-Harris, the Latin teacher forced into early retirement by a heart condition. After teaching in a public school for twenty years, Crocker-Harris is being put out to pasture in a less stressful job teaching English to foreigners. Meanwhile, his home life is also falling apart: his wife ( Greta Scacchi ) is having an affair with the American chemistry teacher ( Matthew Modine ), who nevertheless admires Crocker-Harris for his dignity and decency. Through it all, Crocker-Harris hides his pain behind his stiff British reserve. — Don Kaye