Rating: 
Summary: Really interesting
Review: A brilliant story truly. One must wonder if things have changed so much in our "modern world". Issues of class, rumors, what others will think, limits on behavior, limits on choices of acceptable mates, etc. This film is very cerebral and definitely not likely to be appreciated by "the masses" - but certainly worth a look...!
Rating:
Summary: worth seeing
Review: A good play, complex themes, strong acting, beautifully photographed--just exactly what more do people want? This film deserves better reviews than its gotten.
Rating: 
Summary: One Strange Household
Review: An extraordinarily strange period piece made even stranger by Director Mike Figgis's insistence on macabre close-ups, unexplainable split-screen trickery, and just plain weird camera angles.One evening, the servants for a nobleman decide to go beserk ("when the cat's away, the mice will play"), and his emotionally-disturbed daughter feels surrounded by danger. A manservant comes to her rescue, hiding her in a pantry off the kitchen, where delusions of grandeur overtake him, and he emotionally and physically assaults her. The rest of the film (about an hour) is a verbal sparing match of psychological gameplaying that ultimately amounts to very little but is terribly interesting to watch it unfold. One subtlely hypnotic performance by Saffron Burrows as Miss Julie keeps this piece afloat. Certainly, not worth owning (in my humble opinion), but definitely worth the view.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful, but not for everyone
Review: August Strindberg is one of Sweden's most important writers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 'Miss Julie' is one of Strindberg's plays written around the turn of the century. This is a powerful story of anger, hate, lust and class envy. The play revolves around two main characters. Jean (Peter Mullan) is a footman, a servant to a Count in northern Sweden in the late 1890's. Julie (Saffron Burrows) is the Count's shrewish and self loathing daughter. Jean is tormented by his attraction to Julie and his simultaneous hatred of her class. The play focuses on an encounter they have one midsummer's night in the servants' kitchen. Jean takes his resentment out on Julie with sarcastic remarks and open disdain for the gentry of which she is a part. She responds sometimes docilely and contritely, and at others with condescending vitriol. This open antipathy belies their sexual attraction and the embattled conversation leads to a seduction, which is really less of a seduction than a mutual ravishment. Afterward, as Julie is more vulnerable, Jean attempts to manipulate her into stealing money from her father and running away with him so he can indulge his secret ambition to own a hotel and become a part of the upper class he now so despises. The film ends on a decided downbeat, which is no surprise given the characters' deeply disturbed personalities. The story is intense, intelligent and visceral. It is has more the feel of a play (one set, crude props, only one or two costumes per actor). However, though the acting is more that of a theatrical production, it is shot more like a modern motion picture. Director Mike Figgis does a good job with the camera, using some innovative techniques to keep it from looking like you are watching a play through a window. The story is likely to be appreciated by only a very small audience. Not only is it very dark, but all the characters are distasteful. Jean is angry, sardonic, obnoxious and manipulative. Julie is shrewish, condescending, self hating, and insecure. There is really no one with whom the audience can identify. This renders the entire story potent but extremely unpleasant. Also, it deals with themes that were mainstream in 1900, but are generally beyond the ken of today's audiences. The actors were fabulously cast and the acting superb. Peter Mullen is short, craggy and Napoleonic, while Saffron Burrows is tall, willowy, and graceful. Besides being well cast for their stations, she was at least four inches taller than he, and this worked well with all the allusions to the aristocracy being "up there" and the servants being "down here". Peter Mullen played the part flat out. He was pugnacious and full of indignant rage, envy and spurn. The acclaim Saffron Burrows received for this performance was well deserved. She handled the difficult range of emotions deftly, moving effortlessly from whimpering child to haughty virago and all the complex self torturing emotions in between. I rated this film an 8/10. This is not a film for everyone. In fact it is a film that most people will probably dislike. I would recommend it for the ardent theatergoer who is a battle tested veteran of microscopic character studies involving flawed characters. To like this film you have to be one who can appreciate trying and disturbing emotional portrayals without a need to like any of the characters. For everyone else, it will probably be a harrowing and disagreeable experience.
Rating: 
Summary: 0 stars.
Review: Boring, boring, boring. Set piece of a flawed, and overindulgent strindberg play, could have been more bearable had this been a play, but in the movies, too sub par actors, no real plot...no way man. Alright, strindberg was known for his sadist relationships with women, as well as his little, oh shall we call it inferiority complex, with upper classes. (Dad an aspiring aristocrat, but a failed bussiness man, mom proletarian and dies very young) He married a baroness, then deserted her, then never, according to his own admission, managed a loving relationship, without the power, submission, et al. with a woman. Now imagine all that transcribed into endless dialogs between countess ( mike figes girlfriend managing a huge fiasco of wooden (over)-acting and stunned grimaces) and her dad's servant: I like you, i am above you class-wise, i like you too, i want the power you got, i am more clever/older than you i ll dominate you, no you wont, blah, blah, blah. Gladly i watched it on cable and had some work to do so essentially i heard most of it, well to be honest, after an hour or so, i put some music on the pc, coulndt be bothered anymore. So, it all boils down to, if you are the arty type with aspirations and in need of dinner time conversations then by all means watch, and have another pointless discussion on nothing, if not, watch a decent movie, with some plot, characters, depth, and not some re-vamped failure of meaningless drama. Cheers.
Rating:
Summary: rent it before you buy it
Review: I am an intelligent person who enjoys good period pieces, but this was not at all a good movie. I think part of the problem was that it was adapted from a play, and I prefer films that develop character like in novels. It was very slow and completely devoid of character development. Explanations of the characters' motivations were practically nonexistent and seemed rather arbitrary. While highly literary people might like this movie, I think anyone who enjoys a real story should avoid it. To be fair, though, the acting was good; my problem with the movie is entirely due to the material. If in doubt, rent it first to make sure you want to own it. Also don't buy it just for the alleged sex scene; you don't see anything exciting, and it made me cringe because it was essentially rape.
Rating:
Summary: Not the best of Mike Figgis' experiments
Review: In "Miss Julie", director Mike Figgis continues to experiment with filmmaking. Some of his efforts I have enjoyed, particularly "Timecode", which divided the screen into four quadrants with four different events occurring simultaneously. Other works, such as "Miss Julie", I have trouble with because I think they would be better [or at least more accessible] if they had had a somewhat more conventional filming. "Miss Julie" takes place in Europe in 1894. Julie [Saffron Burrows] is a countess whose fiancée has left her because she is too willful. She plays a sexual cat-and-mouse game with one of her servants [Peter Mullan] under the nose of his fiancée [Maria Doyle Kennedy]. Julie and her servant appear to hate each other, and this emotion seems only to stir their lust. Sex becomes a weapon in what is really class warfare. It seems that the servant has longed for Julie since he was a boy. Until now, she has been too insulated in her high born world to take notice. The movie takes place during a night and part of the next day. Everything happens in and around the kitchen of Julie's house. The idea is to make the audience feel Julie's sense of imprisonment in her world. The idea works, as the viewer soon begins to feel claustrophobic. Perhaps in an attempt to be faithful to the play it was based on, we see only the three main characters, except for two or three scenes when we see other servants working and chattering. There are numerous references to The Count [Julie's father and the servant's master], but he is never seen. Because he is so dominant in the lives of these characters, I think the movie would have worked better if he had made an appearance, but that may just be me. I get frustrated when someone in a movie is constantly talked about but never seen. I need a visualization. The high point of the film is Saffron Burrows' performance. She is an amazing actress. This is the third of five films she has made with Figgis. I am ashamed to admit I do not know the origin of their ongoing working relationship. Mullan and Kennedy are also quite good. The problem is that the movie never let me truly feel for the characters, other than to pity them. I could appreciate the acting skills and acknowledge the director's daring, but something about the presentation caused me to have a clinical detachment to what was going on. It may simply be that Figgis chose the wrong material to experiment on. [Note: Figgis also wrote the movie's music score, and it is very, very good.]
Rating:
Summary: Simply a masterpiece...
Review: It's movies like this that restore one's faith in the movie business. Sure it's based on an old play and some may find it stagey or theatrical, but it, nonetheless, fully arrested the heart and mind of this unsuspecting viewer due in large part to Saffron Burrows. The depth of her concentration and commitment to the role of Miss Julie is breathtaking and liberating; she captures one's attention so completely that there is no hope for release until the performance's end. Her beauty and skill as an actress are unsurpassed in modern times and it baffles me to no end that she is not more widely recognized and celebrated.
Figgis' Miss Julie is a more faithful telling of Strindberg's play than the more 'cinematic' Sjoberg version of 1950. Where Figgis employs economy, Sjoberg lengthened with unnecessary flashbacks, dampening much of the power of the original play. Figgis is a man of many talents as he also wrote the haunting musical score that perfectly mirrors the themes of the story. And certainly not as an afterthought, Peter Mullar in the role of Jean is superb and deserves more recognition for his work as well.
The movie biz, in all of its forms, produces only a handful of great movies each year-that might be overstating the case-but once in a while that special movie does come along and knocks you hard in the chest and of your feet; stories that usually force one to reexamine the state of our existence and often point in a meaningful direction to the future. Movies are powerful instruments, taking the place of religion in many lives, and as an art form, reestablishing the sacred tradition that storytelling once had before the days of electronic technology.
Months after watching Miss Julie I find myself still mesmerized and enraptured by its web. Congratulations to Mike Figgis and team. You have not produced a Hollywood blockbuster, but you have created a masterpiece. It is only unfortunate that more people will not see it. It deserves and is worthy of a wide audience.
Keep up the brilliant work Saffron.
Rating:
Summary: Simply a masterpiece...
Review: It's movies like this that restore one's faith in the movie business. Sure, this movie is based on an old play and some may find it stagey or theatrical, but it, nonetheless, fully arrested the heart and mind of this unsuspecting viewer. This was in large part due to Saffron Burrows; the depth of her concentration and commitment to the role of Miss Julie is breathtaking and liberating. She captures one's attention so completely that there is no hope for release until the performance's end. Her beauty and skill as an actress are unsurpassed in modern times and it baffles me to no end that she is not more widely recognized and celebrated. Figgis' Miss Julie is a more faithful telling of Strindberg's play than the more 'cinematic' Sjoberg version of 1950. Where Figgis employs economy, Sjoberg lengthened with unnecessary flashbacks, dampening much of the power of the original play. Figgis is a man of many talents as he also wrote the haunting musical score that perfectly mirrors the themes of the story. And certainly not as an afterthought, Peter Mullar in the role of Jean is superb and deserves more recognition for his work as well. The movie biz, in all of its forms, produces only a handful of great movies each year-that might be overstating the case-but once in a while that special movie does come along and knocks you hard in the chest and of your feet; stories that usually force one to reexamine the state of our existence and often point in a meaningful direction to the future. Movies are powerful instruments, taking the place of religion in many lives, and as an art form, reestablishing the sacred tradition that storytelling once had before the days of electronic technology. Months after watching Miss Julie I find myself still mesmerized and enraptured by its web. Congratulations to Mike Figgis and team. You have not produced a Hollywood blockbuster, but you have created a masterpiece. It is only unfortunate that more people will not see it. It deserves and is worthy of a wide audience. Keep up the brilliant work Saffron.
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant movie from the director of Leaving Las Vegas
Review: Mike Figgis is one of my favourite directors as I loved Leaving Las Vegas and liked One Night Stand very much . He deals with conversations between a man and a woman in his films ,and he touches the untouched by doing so. I have watched this movie in Istanbul 19.th film festival and I am eager to put this DVD into my archive. But to classical Hollywood productions' lovers , and action lovers : this movie is NOT for you . There are 3 people in the movie and %95 of the movie is composed of dialogues . If you need a perfect dram , a chlostrophobic and depressive love affair and a beautiful act (Miss Julie) then don't miss this movie . At last , I want to note that Mike Figgis come from the allied directors of decleration Dogma(also Lars Von Trier) that have some principles directing a movie . You'll understand what I mean if you watch it ...
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