What movie is this scene from?
February 20, 2020 10:02 PM Subscribe
I'm trying to locate a film for a (very vaguely recalled) scene depicting the humiliation of an older woman as she overhears expressions of irritable distaste toward her by individuals she was trying to befriend.
It goes something like this. An older actress, perhaps Vanessa Redgrave or Maggie Smith, seems to be hosting visitors in a large house. She is chatting away in the presence of one or two gentlemen. Switch to another scene either immediately thereafter or later in the film. Two men are talking (outside the house I think). They think they are alone, but she is nearby unseen and listening. One gentlemen makes rather harsh remarks about her, finding her insufferable. She is humiliated. My recollection is that she cries or is visibly mortified and pained. I thought the film might be My House in Umbria but I could not find this scene in the version on YouTube.
It goes something like this. An older actress, perhaps Vanessa Redgrave or Maggie Smith, seems to be hosting visitors in a large house. She is chatting away in the presence of one or two gentlemen. Switch to another scene either immediately thereafter or later in the film. Two men are talking (outside the house I think). They think they are alone, but she is nearby unseen and listening. One gentlemen makes rather harsh remarks about her, finding her insufferable. She is humiliated. My recollection is that she cries or is visibly mortified and pained. I thought the film might be My House in Umbria but I could not find this scene in the version on YouTube.
It's a bit similar to the way that Miss Bates is insulted by Emma Woodhouse during the outing to Box Hill, which you'll see in any filmed version of Jane Austen's Emma.
posted by rd45 at 2:12 AM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by rd45 at 2:12 AM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]
It was a long time ago, but there is a scene like this in Impromptu, where the guests put on a skit mocking their hostess, she reacts accordingly. It's a cute movie and stars Judy Davis as George Sands and Hugh Grant as Chopin, worth a watch on a rainy afternoon if it's not the film you're thinking of.
posted by newpotato at 2:48 AM on February 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by newpotato at 2:48 AM on February 21, 2020 [4 favorites]
Oh, I have seen this and it is making me crazy that I can't figure out where. My memory is that it is Maggie Smith in a period drama, and she is trying to patch things up with a younger, fashionable man and says something like, "I apologize for using your Christian name, it was terribly informal," and later overhears the man on the telephone somehow laughing about the name thing in particular and maybe how he never wants to visit her?
I spent the morning perusing her filmography but the only conclusion I came to is that Maggie Smith has played a lot of lonely elderly ladies trying to hold the line for civilization and decency in large but crumbling Great Houses during the Interwar Period.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 2:01 PM on February 21, 2020
I spent the morning perusing her filmography but the only conclusion I came to is that Maggie Smith has played a lot of lonely elderly ladies trying to hold the line for civilization and decency in large but crumbling Great Houses during the Interwar Period.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 2:01 PM on February 21, 2020
Is it the 1976 adaptation of Bernice bobs her hair?
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 6:49 PM on February 21, 2020
posted by Rube R. Nekker at 6:49 PM on February 21, 2020
Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions so far. None of these seem to fit the bill but they make for great referrals!
posted by mefitem at 2:26 AM on February 22, 2020
posted by mefitem at 2:26 AM on February 22, 2020
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posted by alchemist at 11:13 PM on February 20, 2020