A well-made play, made, or rather remade, into a well-made movie. Beautifully "read," beautifully dressed and accoutered, beautifully carpentered and upholstered, beautifully photographed. It seems to be the standard critical response to raise an eyebrow of surprise over the incongruity of American dramatist and filmmaker David Mamet settling himself into the G-rated drawing rooms and parliamentary chambers of Edwardian London (King's English Spoken Here), as if Mamet is all about four-letter words and underworld scum. But Mamet, even in such a mercenary assignment as his screenplay for The Edge, first and foremost has always been "about" craftsmanship and construction and high polish. If there is a surprise here, it's not that he is able to refrain from cussing for a couple of hours, it's that he would take up a text written by anybody but himself for one of his own directing projects. That's a first, in his sixth such project. Seeing that he already had directed the screen version of his own Oleanna, it cannot be a surprise that he would choose to adapt a stage play rather than do something original, but it can still be a cause for mild regret. Like the adaptation of Oleanna, which likewise was beautifully "read" and beautifully photographed, The Winslow Boy must be counted as minor Mamet, though it has the bonus interest of pointing up his unexpected affinity for fellow playwright Terence Rattigan (The Browning Version, Separate Tables, etc.), likewise a craftsman and a polisher. No matter how interesting this affinity might be -- and it is interesting primarily to the degree that it was unexpected -- few among us will be willing to go all the way with Mamet in his enthusiasm. The original play, based on a factual case, about a boat-rocking nationwide crusade to obtain a fair hearing for a thirteen-year-old lad drummed out of military school on a charge of petty theft, still seems a conventional and a stuffy and a, needless to add, stagy piece of work. Mamet is reported to have entertained the idea at first of reviving the play on stage instead of on screen, and in view of his fidelity to the original, that might have been the more sensible course. With Nigel Hawthorne, Rebecca Pidgeon, Jeremy Northam. (1999) — Duncan Shepherd
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