Personal Services (1987)

hyped garbage

Good movie but grossly overrated

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The story of Cynthia Payne (London's notorious 'Luncheon Voucher Madam') could have easily been made into a tawdry little sex farce, but underneath all the kinky detail is a film aspiring toward something more than just another naughty biography. Julie Walters' vivid performance, bristling with barely suppressed nervous energy, creates a memorable portrait of a working class girl who, to make ends meet, opens a cheerfully uninhibited suburban brothel catering to the milder perversions of errant older gentlemen: costume fantasies; flagellation; transvestitism, and so forth. There's plenty of wit (much of it with a sharp edge) in David Leland's screenplay, which despite its forthright lack of inhibition is remarkably tolerant of (and even sympathetic to) the shortcomings of its characters. Names have been changed to protect the innocent (and hide the guilty), but the facts are essentially true (despite a pair of disclaimers) and Terry Jones' direction shows more tact than otherwise might be expected from a former member of Monty Python's Flying Circus, a troupe never known for their subtlety or discretion.

If you find a poor working - class woman's gradual slide into prostitution funny then feel free to laugh your way through "Personal Services".Cynthia Painter made the best of the bad options available to her(sh#g or starve basically)but no way in real life was "fun" an option. The rest is mostly a myth(albeit a self - serving one)propagated by the Red Tops when Ms Painter's business finally came to their official notice. Late 20th century British sexual hypocrisy is exposed to absolutely no one's surprise and the Judicial System is shown to be open to corruption or so Ms Painter maintains,but then, as an earlier celebrity prostitute Ms Mandy Rice - Davis might say,she would - wouldn't she. Miss Julie Walters - an estimable actress perhaps slightly over - exposed on British television - plays Ms Painter in her customary no nonsense I'm working class and proud of it style.She is at her best in the movie's more serious moments before giving it her all as the wise elderly tart with a heart which was presumably how Ms Painter wanted to portray herself. Men are shown to be mostly weak or crooked or both,barely getting a fair crack of the whip unless it is wielded by Miss Walters or one of her acolytes. The whole media - induced "scandal" about the "People's Madame" was a storm in a teacup and soon forgotten in the newspapers' never - ending hunt for fresh sleaze."Personal Services" too was a bit of a nine days' wonder and Miss Walters herself has gone on to better things.What reputation it has is as a sex comedy but there isn't much sex in it and it isn't funny.Go figure.

Often it is said that you can define a country by the way it deals with that thorny business known as sex. Personal Services is as English as it gets about sex. Based very loosely on the life of English madam Cynthia Payne, Personal Services takes the character of Cynthia Painter and follows her progress from London waitress to a brothel keeper or 'Madam'.It starts with an accident. Madam is renting out flats but her clients (particularly one) don't pay her rent so she has to pay her landlord in a different way, by offering him sexual favours. Pretty soon, she starts to do this on a regular basis. Usually her clients are old men or men with a particular 'kink' such as wearing rubber and being locked in a cupboard with only a panic button for company. Others prefer being treated like naughty school boys and being spanked by matron or mistress. All this is done in the only way it can be done, the English style, accompanied by ribald comments about male anatomy, cups of tea, transvestites called 'Dolly' and, of course, the law, the police and eventually the crown court judge (who happens to be a Painter client).It is Belle De Jour without Catherine Deneuvre and with a lot more fun and more honesty. And of course, loads of tea and biscuits.

beautifully acted, unexpectedly moving, hilarious, and at times very, very dirty, this film is "inspired by" the life of cynthia payne, one of the most notorious madame's in britain's history - julie walters is brilliant as a woman who evolves from a waitress struggling to make her rent, to a successful businesswoman running a brothel that caters only to "kinky sorts" - through all of it, she raises a son, forces her father to come to terms with the person his daughter has become, and has difficulty with the "charles and diana" ideal of love that she can never find for herself - perhaps the greatest quality of this film, though, is its ability to shock at every turn - just when you thought you'd seen just how honestly funny kinky sex can be, think again...