Then you went upstairs. The two of you were alone for a moment. What happened?


In a novel and intriguing approach to storytelling, director David Hare has created an engaging mystery and human drama that ostensibly focuses on an innocent dinner party but is really about something else. Jean Travers (Vanessa Redgrave) is an old-maid schoolmarm who has lived in Wetherby, a small town in northeastern Yorkshire, all of her life. She is still haunted by memories of a passionate love affair with a young man who was later murdered while on military duty in Malaysia nearly 35 years ago in the '50s. One evening, Jean invites a group of friends over for dinner; the group is comprised of two couples, one of which spends the time sniping at each other. A young man, John Morgan (Tim McInnerny) is also in the dinner party. Jean thinks he was brought along by one of the couples; the couples, in turn, believe he was invited by Jean -- in short, he is a total stranger that everyone assumes is a friend of someone there. As the evening progresses, political topics of the moment are brought up and chewed over; Margaret Thatcher, Richard Nixon, and other notables of the era are discussed, and various comments are made on the laziness of today's youth. The dinner party ends, and the next day John Morgan comes back to visit Jean. While she is in the midst of preparing tea for them both, he takes out a gun and kills himself. The shock waves from his senseless act later reverberate among the dinner-party guests, as the police investigator tries to piece together the man's background and the dinner party itself. Questions are raised about his motives, and viewers see the dinner party again, moment by moment, in an entirely new light.


Wetherby has an overall approval rating of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.[1]
In her review in the New York Times, Janet Maslin observed the film was written "with a playwright's ear for elegant dialogue and a playwright's portentous sense of symmetry. While the former is certainly welcome on the screen, the latter is less at home, and it serves to make Wetherby a peculiar hybrid not entirely suited to either medium . . . the film's momentum varies unpredictably, with a rhythm that is sometimes abrupt, sometimes languid. Equally uneven is the acuteness of the dialogue, with passages that are particularly pointed interspersed with those whose bearing is at best indirect . . . However, Mr. Hare has assembled a superb cast, and its ensemble work is very fine . . . Miss Redgrave's warm, credible performance is very much the heart of the film. She brings to the character a crisp intelligence and a very deep compassion, while still managing to make every movement a surprise."[2]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a haunting film, because it dares to suggest that the death of the stranger is important to everyone it touches – because it forces them to decide how alive they really are."[3]
Time Out London notes, "Redgrave's performance is superb and she's ably supported by Holm, Dench, and Hamilton in particular


Release Date: July 19, 1985

Distrib: MGM/UA Classics

Boxoffice: $1,299,985 2013: $2,947,900