Rating: 
Summary: Thoroughly well acted and filmed
Review: "Remains of the Day" is a classic film from the Merchant-Ivory team that lifted the English drama genre out of BBC and PBS obscurity. It works seemlessly and beautifully between past and present, and shows the depth of human emotion behind upper-crust gentility.Anthony Hopkins is superb as Stevens, the head butler to an English lord whose naive sympathy for the Nazis lead to his downfall. Emma Thompson plays the head housekeeper who joins the manor staff and tries to shake Hopkins out of his emotional and political complacency. The attraction between the two grows out of the tension between doing one's duty and honoring one's feelings. As Thompson's character grows more restless, Hopkins' grows ever more resistant to her overtures. One excellent scene, where she invades his dark study, shows how the butler's training and detachment struggle against a growing affection: as Thompson tries to pry a book from Hopkins' fingers, you can hear the clench he maintains until the end. The film covers a lot of themes at once: loyalty, sacrifice, unrequited love, and regret. When Hopkins travels to search out Thompson nearly twenty years after WWII, it's as much for the chance at reviving love as it is for asking her to return to the manor. The end scenes are heart-rending without being maudlin. The other characters are also well done: James Fox as Lord Darlington, the old-fashioned aristocrat who plays the unwitting dupe for Nazi envoys in pre-Churchill Britain; Christopher Reeve as the realistic American politician who voices fear and dismay at the events in the manor (and becomes owner after the war); Peter Vaughan as Stevens' elderly father, and Hugh Grant as Darlington's nephew. Location shots are sumptuous, from the grand interiors of Darlington Hall to the English countryside. This is a film I enjoy seeing over and over.
Rating:
Summary: A sense of longing.
Review: From the opening shot to the haunting, final fade out,"Remains of the Day" is one of the finest films ever made. Stunning cinematography, brilliant performances and direction... A beautiful score and a near perfect script. What a package. This DVD version released last year has the added atraction of hearing Emma Thompson's thoughts as she views the film along with the producer and director. These optional "commentary" features seem to be on all the newer DVD releases. But the film,of course, is the main attraction. The English class-system just prior to World War II, brought to life by director James Ivory, seems other worldly today. Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson bring to this background their brillaint portrayals of "Stevens" and "Miss Kenton." Along with this other world, they provide the sense of longing so crucial to "Remains." This movie,quite simply,is unforgetable.
Rating:
Summary: On my list of favorite overlooked movies.
Review: April 12, 2002 I know why a lot of people out there might never have
seen 'Remains Of The Day.' For one, it's Merchant-Ivory.
For another, it's Merchant-Ivory. I recall Quentin Tarantino once opining that he could
not sit through anything made by Merchant-Ivory. Well,
frankly Quentin, I didn't make it through 'Jackie Brown',
so I know how you feel. On the other hand, as far as
Merchant-Ivory movies have been concerned, I've been
able to take 'em or leave 'em. Sometimes there's nothing
behind all those drawing rooms and accents. Sometimes there is. This is the Merchant-Ivory that
should've pulled down the Oscar. It holds the august
distinction of being the sole film of my adult movie
going career to put a choke in my throat. Its two
leads are better here than they've ever been. Once in a great while you read a story or see a film
that inhabits a lost time and place so expertly and
completely that as soon as you reach the end you wish
to go back to the beginning to live through those times
all over again. The Narnia books are like that, and
Robert Graves's 'I Claudius', and Stephenson's 'Treasure
Island', and Larry McMurtry's 'Lonesome Dove'. Such
epics inevitably end sadly, concerned as they are with
the passing of epochs. I never suspected that I might encounter an equivalent
feeling of loss for the heyday of the British class system.
Rating: 
Summary: better movies than this one are out there
Review: Anthony Hopkins as Stevens the butler constantly lets the profession of butler interfere with the living of life. The insular butler is not worthy of sympathy. Better go see an ostrich with its head in the sand. Only Hopkins and Thompson themselves garner attention in this huge yawner.
Rating:
Summary: Just a couple minor points
Review: Lots of interesting critiques here of this masterful and wrenching film and I don't see much point in being redundant. So, one perhaps important clarification and one opinion just because I feel like it: 1. The DVD release contains not THREE deleted scenes, but SIX. The Special Features section has a second page! Furthermore, if you've missed it you will see not only the scene (whose absence from the film is interestingly lamented in an earlier review here) in which Miss Kenton speculates on what her life might've been with Stevens, but also a rather fascinating scene labeled "The Pier" in which Stevens spills his guts to a complete stranger and dampens his hanky into the bargain. Without having yet heard the director's commentary in these scenes, I must conclude that they were excised for their overt emotionalism, which could be considered somehow false to the characters. To me, the more intense the repression, the more inevitable that eventually the truth will be blurted out in an awkward and unexpected manner, so I'm of mixed mind regarding these choices. 2. I relish rather than regret the integrity this film displays in not permitting us the scenes of huge emotional catharsis that we're all screaming for by the end of the tale, but the penultimate pigeon scene is one subtlety too many...either this film should've made SOME sort of final statement or I've failed to properly comprehend the one that's there. Instead, it just seems to...stop, in a rather arbitrary and anticlimactic manner.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Simply wonderful. Much is said about what people do, what is included, how much you're gonna get. Sometimes, the key is what is NOT there. In this case, the performances are not over the top. They are intense, but in a subtle way; they're understated. My favorite scene is when Ms. Kenton (Thompson) wants to find out what Stevens (Hopkins) is reading on his day off. The water comes to a boil in that scene but in a quiet, almost playful way. The irony of Stevens is that he seems to be in total control of himself, when the truth is he's really very highly influenced by others. Kenton obviously pushes his buttons in more ways than one. He's made to see the light by his nephew, played by Hugh Grant, tho he doens't let on. Remains is definitely a great study in fully developed characters. Stevens reminds me of my father and to a large degree myself. He internalizes much, not wanting to really say what he feels deep down inside. Ultimately it all comes out anyway. The truth WILL set you free.
Rating: 
Summary: MOURNFUL RESONANCE
Review: Set against the backdrop of an impending WWII, this Merchant Ivory production tells the story of unrequited love between two servants working in a British stately home.
Anthony Hopkins is the punctilious butler James Stevens and Emma Thompson is the feisty housekeeper Sally Kenton, who work in the service of the slightly pompous and very misguided Lord Darlington (James Fox). Stevens and Kenton fall in love with each other but neither is prepared to reveal their true feelings. Meanwhile, Stevens the butler demonstrates blind loyalty to his master Lord Darlington, even when Darlington makes very ill advised contact with the Nazis. This is very much a low-burn movie. On the surface it may seem that very little happens in this 1993 Merchant-Ivory production but paradoxically there is actually so much to view and so much to think about. Apart from the love story that is central to the plot of the whole movie, it is also a story of misguided actions, repression and misguided loyalty. Director James Ivory (Howard's End, A Room With A View etc.) once again beautifully recreates an important time in British history and fills it with sartorial elegance. As always, Anthony Hopkins in another Oscar nominated performance, is magnificent as the emotionally repressed butler Stevens and he is well matched by the equally magnificent, also Oscar nominated, Thompson as Sally Kenton, who like Hopkins gives a performance of incredible depth and subtlety. What's more, there are also excellent supporting performances from James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Ben Chaplin, and Hugh Grant. (The DVD also has some very good extras, including three featurettes, feature commentary by Thompson and Ivory, the original theatrical trailer and filmographies. It also contains deleted scenes which would have made certain themes more explicit and that would have ultimately detracted from the film). If you are feeling a bit low this is not the movie to watch but for fans of well-acted adult drama, this has a mournful resonance and is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Anthony Hopkins At His Best
Review: If there is a movie that allows Anthony Hopkins's considerable skills as an actor shine, it is Remains Of The Day. His portrayal of a butler commands respect for a profession that has frequently been portrayed in a semi comical and an inconsequential manner. Butlers in Hollywood films are either shallow beings or criminals in a murder mystery: (the butler did it.) Hopkins changes that profoundly. His character, Mr. Stevens, is a professional butler who oversees others who perform service in an aristocratic mansion. He has been in the service profession all his life, walking in his father's footsteps. His professionalism is absolute. He is reserved and displays astonishing self-control, even when confronted with difficult emotional situations. When his father dies during a very important conference at the mansion, he continues serving and puts off grieving. When the woman he deeply loves informs him that she has accepted a marriage proposal by another man and will be leaving soon he remains stoic. The movie's high point is near the end when we catch a glimpse of the deepest parts of Mr. Stevens's soul. With a good storyline and superb performance by Hopkins, Emma Thompson and others, Remains Of The Day is a must see.
Rating:
Summary: Yep...a truly great film
Review: One of the best films you could wish to see, 'The Remains of the Day' reminded me slightly of 'Brief Encounter', but without the melodrama. Most of the reviewers below have already praised the aspects of this film that make it so great: the superlative acting, the meticulous (yet never sterile) period detail, the calm, measured direction etc. etc. I can only add that the film is also one of the most genuinely poignant and stomach-churning that you could wish to see. And by stomach-churning I don't mean 'gruesome' but by the end I'll be surprised if you don't feel very emotional and wound-up. It made me cry anyway (and that's unusual!). The clever part is that the emotion the film engenders in the viewer hasn't been obviously contrived by the director to tug at the heart-strings. What it does is make the viewer reflect on their own lives and their own 'what might have' beens. As one reviewer states below, this film does not offer a satisfactory conclusion. What a relief! And how brave of it not to do so. The only film which I think compares with it is Woody Allen's 'Crimes and Misdemeanours' (Allen's masterpiece). I do wonder if the 'negative' ending of the film hasn't affected its standing as one of the very greatest films of this type that you'll see. Period films usually leave me cold, being filmed as though they are in aspic, but this film has the touch of 'reality' about it. Anyway, I could watch the scene at the pier, as twilight falls, a million times over and not tire of it. The moment when the lights are switched on and the glow of the neon is reflected in the rainwashed wooden flooring is exquisite. And when Hopkins and Thompson go to the little bus-stop be prepared for some intense feelings. Ugh...this film's sad, maybe it's too sad. But it's also profound and the undercurrents of the film cut through the 50s setting and seem to make our own lives more relevent to ourselves. I love it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie.
Review: One of the best movies of the 90's, this captivating tale of unrequitted love is, in my opinion, extremely underappreciated.
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