Sting plays the would-be surrogate father of Meryl Streep’s unborn child in Plenty (1985). Adapted from the stage play by David Hare (who also wrote the screenplay), Plenty follows Streep’s Susan Traherne, an Englishwoman unable to recapture the passion and vitality that she experienced as a Resistance supporter in WWII France. The film is set in the years that follow the war, as her life becomes increasingly consumed by loveless despair and empty materialism. Streep gives a wistful and nuanced performance as a character whose deterioration in many ways mirrors the postwar decline of the British Empire.
Recruited by Susan to father her children is working-class Mick. Showing a vulnerability rarely seen through his Police frontman’s facade, Sting’s Mick finds his blossoming love for Susan unrequited following eighteen months of fruitless dalliances. Although Mick is unable to break through the class barrier separating him from Susan, their affair nonetheless gives rise to Sting’s first on-screen love scene, which unfolds as the ceremonial blare of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth resounds outside the bedroom window.
Directed by Fred Schepisi (who also teamed with Streep in A Cry in the Dark), Plenty’s eclectic cast features Sam Neill (The Piano) as a parachuting English spy whose single night of idealistic passion with Susan during the war lingers in her mind throughout the film; the lively British comedienne Tracey Ullman as a carefree friend whose vivacity offers a contrast to Susan’s self-debilitating despair; and the always distinguished Sir John Gielgud as an English diplomat named Sir Leonard Darwin.
Twentieth Century Fox (USA)
R
Color
124 minutes
Directed by: Fred Schepisi
Produced by: Edward R. Pressman (RKO)
Joseph Papp (RKO)
Written by: David Hare
(based on his play of the same name)
Cast:
| Susan Traherne | Meryl Streep |
| Raymond Brock | Charles Dance |
| Alice Park | Tracey Ullman |
| Sir Leonard Darwin | John Gielgud |
| Mick | Sting |
| Sir Andrew Charleson | Ian McKellen |
| Lazar | Sam Neill |
| Mr. Aung | Burt Kwouk |
| Madame Aung | Pik Sen Lim |
| Villon | Andre Maranne |
| Michael | Hugh Laurie |
| Medlicott | Ian Wallace |
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Also: |
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Ian Baker |
Cinematography |
| Peter Honess | Editing |
| Bruce Smeaton | Music |
| Tony Reading | Art Direction |
| Adrian Smith | Art Direction |
| Richard MacDonald | Production Design |
| Ruth Myers | Costume Design |