It is wonderfully written it is not beautiful, but it is the perfect blend of form and content. Everything about the film, the supporting cast in particular is a rousing triumph. Its story of decline hidden under the façade of class glory rings true with my own experience of the declining position of old elites.

The fascinating examination of one man's sense of duty, a devotion that transcends all other obligations and aspirations in his life has never been so poignantly or expertly presented to an audience. A haunting tale of lost causes and lost love, The Remains of the Day, winner of the Booker Prize, contains Ishiguros now celebrated evocation of life. Wolf doesn’t confide so much as report on a crunchy gherkin, on abstract political anxieties, on a disconcerting dream. This is the backdrop the main story is that of the butler, Stevens, an ostensibly simple character played with unimaginable complexity, by Hopkins. The book is thronged with detail, but of a careful kind. This film addresses if you can believe it, the folly of avoiding War thru appeasement, and hammers home what might have been avoided if the British had called Hitler to the carpet early on, instead of playing chess with him. However in most cases, it's an incomplete and wildly immature handling of the topic. 'The Remains of the Day' tells the story of Stevens trip to the sea, and what he finds there. Most films as we know too well, concentrate on the futility and bottom line cost in humanity, which is to be expected since generally speaking, an artist will always present this point of view. An extremely rare example of sanity when dealing with the subject of War. The film does a wonderful parallel examination of the man's life set against the tumult of the 1930s that effectively did away with the British Empire and made him and others like him, as people curiously obsolete.

Very deliberate but marvelous study of a lifetime butler in an English noble household.

The remains of the day book reviews