An Englishman in New York (2009)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK is a exceptionally well done film about the last years of the infamous Quentin Crisp (born Denis Charles Pratt, 25 December 1908 - 21 November 1999), an English writer and raconteur - one who is skilled at regurgitating funny anecdotes he heard someone else say first. Writer Brian Fillis has provided a highly polished script for director Richard Laxton, the two thus being able to bring to life this icon of homosexuality in the 1970s who, after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant, came to America to do 'speaking engagements', better described as cabaret comedy/philosophy routines. He dressed effeminately because that is the way he saw himself, and he adapted to life in New York with a joy that made people notice and respect him finally. John Hurt brings a brilliant luster to his role as the strange but lovely elderly Crisp who sits before audiences and says what comes to his mind. He is befriended by Christopher Street editor Phillip Steel (Dennis O'Hare) who gives him work as a movie critic, noticed by promoter Connie Clausen (Swoosie Kurtz) who schedules him heavily in nightclubs as an act, shy painter Patrick Angus (Jonathan Tucker) whom he champions among galleries, and kooky performance artist Penny Arcade (Cynthia Nixon). At the height of his popularity he makes a comments about AIDS being a 'fad', something that unites gays with a disease that Crisp claims is just what the straight public wants, and his popularity among his audience wanes. He discovers Angus is stricken with the disease and mourns his too soon death, and is sheltered by Steel as he grows into a fragile very elderly 91 year old. Throughout the film Hurt glows as the strange but somehow lovable Crisp, showing us all a side of a man who has been too often dismissed as a weird one. This is a very tender film, complemented by a first class cast, and one that deserves very wide attention. Grady Harp

This film is about Quentin Crisp's journey in New York and his new found celebrity status as a talk show host at the age of 70's."An Englishman in New York" continues the story that was left off 30 years ago. This time, Quentin Crisp becomes largely irrelevant in the gay community. Yet, he is embraced by the general public with his witty comments and humour. He fiercely tries to be himself in a different culture and a different era, but unfortunately things simply changed. What I get from the film is that he becomes irrelevant and out of touch with the modern day context. "An Englishman in New York" provides a sad portrait of his later life, and is a sharp contrast to what he used to be and what he represented.

This film was definitely superior to the BBC's new "Day of the Triffids" adaptation (which was scheduled directly against it), but is not the dramatic equal of the original "Naked Civil Servant", with which it will inevitably be compared. I suspect the main cause of this is that the source material simply doesn't provide a lot of scope: when a story starts with its protagonist in his seventies and having finally gained acceptance and even celebrity, the time-span is inevitably somewhat short and there isn't a great deal more that can happen to him. Even in situations which could, and would, have been threatening to the younger Quentin Crisp, his elder statesman status effectively restricts the repercussions.As a result, more or less the only 'plot event' of the film is the arrival of AIDS in New York, with even that seen largely through the effects on Crisp's career of a single dismissive quip (his reasoned attitude is that making too much of AIDS will only bolster public perception of homosexuals as disease-ridden outcasts, but this doesn't go down well among his target audience). Otherwise, "An Englishman in New York" consists largely of bons mots; little snippets of Crisp performing and delivering his famous lines, whether to an audience of one or to a small studio gathering.That said, given the limitations of its material the film manages to pull off the difficult trick of its predecessor, presenting its deliberately flamboyant, over-the-top protagonist as a sympathetic human being whose pose we not only condone but find ourselves applauding. I generally shy away from 'gay issues', but find myself feeling here for the people he meets and the prejudice he encounters, both from them and on their behalf. In some ways, it is as hard to be a determinedly effeminate homosexual among the butch 'clones' of an out-of-the-closet New York as among the disapproving middle classes of pre-war England.John Hurt does an excellent task in portraying the physical aging of the character, and of course it is a great bonus to have the same actor appearing in both films with a genuine generational time-lapse between them. It is just a truism that -- despite Quentin Crisp's much-repeated prediction that every year "things are going to get worse" -- happiness, as the proverb has it, simply doesn't make for such an enthralling story as do troubled times; and this is essentially a depiction of a man who has finally come to terms with the world, and it with him. As such it is well-meaning and pretty well executed, but not a particularly unmissable experience. And inevitably it is less touching and less striking than its predecessor.

Saw this film at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC and was deeply impressed. A loving, yet honest, look at Quentin Crisp in his later years in New York. John Hurt just IS Quentin Crisp in this role. It's amazing how accustomed we can be to bad acting as a norm until you see a performance like this and are suddenly reminded of how it's really done. Supporting cast is equally effective (how can they not be when you've got Cynthia Nixon and Swoosie Kurtz) with a massive standout being Denis O'Hare. Beautiful understated effective performance. More than simply biographical, it offers many social subjects for consideration in context - queer-on-queer prejudice, appropriate responses to AIDS in the 1980's, and much much more. It's a really good film, and well worth seeking out for just the acting alone. John Hurt is just perfect.