The Dresser

An effeminate personal assistant of a deteriorating veteran actor struggles to get him through a difficult performance of King Lear.

AMG Plot: The complicated relationship of two men who have given their lives to the theater forms the basis for this acclaimed drama. During World War II, an aging but once famous Shakespearean actor, addressed by his cast and crew only as "Sir" (Albert Finney), continues to tour the British theater circuit with a rag tag group of elderly and handicapped actors who are exempt from military service. Sir has grown frustrated, senile, and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown; he's come to rely upon his dresser Norman (Tom Courtenay), an endlessly loyal homosexual who would do anything for the man he's come to love. Norman tries to guide Sir through yet another tour of the hinterlands in The Tempest. This expanded film adaptation of Ronald Harwood's award-winning stage drama also stars Edward Fox as Oxenby, an unhappy member of Sir's company; Sir was said to be based on real-life actor Donald Wolfit.

AMG Review: In this 1983 Peter Yates film, Albert Finney turns in one of the best performances of his distinguished career. He plays "Sir," the tyrannical manager and lead actor of a touring Shakespearean company that continues to perform during bombing raids against England during World War II. One day after a staging of King Lear, Finney makes an unsettling discovery: His own life strangely parallels the tragic life of Lear, the self-centered monarch who isolates himself with his pride, arrogance, and arbitrary demands. Like Lear, Finney realizes late in life that he is "as full of grief as age; wretched in both." He seeks solace in alcohol. But the show must go on, and it is Finney's backstage assistant, Norman Tom Courtenay, who gives him the heart to persevere. Norman is the "dresser," the liegeman who does everything for Sir -- from helping him into his costumes and reminding him of his lines to steeling him against stagefright and fear of failure. He is like Lear's jester -- listening, advising, warning, and sometimes irritating his master. Sir needs Norman. Norman needs Sir. And as the concussion of German bombs shakes the theatre, Finney rages across the theatre stage as an angry Lear while Norman creates backstage thunder by pounding on drums and rattling a sheet of metal. The audience watches in thrall, thumbing their noses at Hitler for a chance to experience Shakespeare. The Oscar nominations the film earned -- for best picture, best director, best actor (Finney and Courtenay), and best screenplay (Ronald Harwood) -- were well deserved.