A Closed Book (film)
Encyclopedia
A Closed Book is a 2010 British
film based on the novel of the same name
by Gilbert Adair
, about a blind author who employs an assistant to help him write his novels. Throughout the film the assistant starts to play crueler and crueler tricks on her employer. The film is directed by Raúl Ruiz, and stars Daryl Hannah
as assistant Jane Ryder, and Tom Conti
as author Sir Paul. A Closed Book was filmed at Knebworth House
in the UK.
he goes through several unsuccessful candidates until Jane Ryder (Daryl Hannah
) turns up and is intelligent and forthright. She is employed, and he explains about the house and introduces Mrs. Kilbride (Miriam Margoyles), the maid.
They have breakfast and go through their pet annoyance's with Sir Paul getting disproportionately angry about Jane saying "no problem". They start writing the book, and Sir Paul again gets very angry at Jane for not taking his instructions. Things run smoothly until Jane starts changing things ever so slightly like taking paintings out of their frames and turning them upside down. Sir Paul starts to suspect things when she sends Mrs. Kilbride home for a week without consulting him.
Sir Paul has a "terrific fear of the dark" and while singing in the bath he keeps thinking he hears noises, which are Jane making him scared. The noises he hears in the bath someone turning the light off, then Jane comes in naked and promises him that the light is on to reassure him. Her lying and sneaking becomes more and more important as she starts lying about Madonna dying and O.J. Simpson committing suicide
and puts his books on the fire instead of lugs. Sir Paul starts becoming really suspicious when Mrs. Kilbride comes back to the house and finds a puzzle that Sir Paul asked Jane to get and it turns out to be the wrong puzzle and this particularly matters to Sir Paul as he wrote about the painting in his book and he gets very, very angry at her and starts to not trust her.
However, suspicions are assuaged when a conservative mp comes to his house to persuade him to vote for the conservative's and fear of sir Paul she responds positively to all his questions and reads what Jane wrote in his book which fortunately for Jane was all accurate.
However, Jane goes in for the kill and one day leaves suits of armour on the floor and displaces desks where she knows that Sir Paul will walk into them and books so he may slip and fall down the stairs. She then comes into the house.
Eventually, Sir Paul realises that Jane has an intention of killing him and in a showdown in his bedroom with Jane she tells him that her husband who had had a gallery showing at a prestigious sight had been criticised severely by Sir Paul and due to the material of his paintings the artist was arrested and put on suspicion of being a pedophile. After comparing Sir Paul to a closed book, Jane shoves him in the closet. She then leaves the house with Sir Paul screaming. She returns to the house out of guilt and not having the stomach to kill someone. She returns to the house to find that Sir Paul has escaped, then after Sir Paul points a gun at her and reveals to her that he is also a pedophile, he invites her to shoot him but she leaves and he is forced to shoot himself.
gave it one (out of five) stars and called it an "atrocious, creepy little film". The Daily Telegraph
gave it 2 out of 5 stars, stating, "A Closed Book feels less like a thriller than an aesthete’s tease". The Guardian
also gave a poor review and only 2 out of 5 stars, describing it as "a silly story about a blind art critic". Perhaps the most scathing is a review from Time Out London which gave the film only 1 star, finding "Raul Ruiz's apologists have their work cut out for them."
Anthony Quinn of The Independent
gave it 3 out of 5 stars stating that "its sheer unlikeliness is what also keeps you hanging in there." Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
shows an average of 3.8 out of 10 based on twelve reviews, but 67% among non-professional critics.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
film based on the novel of the same name
A Closed Book
A Closed Book is a short novel by Gilbert Adair, published in 2000.The book starts with a slightly awkward meeting between a crotchety blind author and a sighted interviewee he seeks to employ as his assistant....
by Gilbert Adair
Gilbert Adair
Gilbert Adair is a Scottish author, film critic and journalist. He won the Author's Club First Novel Award in 1988 for his novel The Holy Innocents. In 1995 he won the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for his book A Void, which is a translation of the French book La Disparition by Georges Perec...
, about a blind author who employs an assistant to help him write his novels. Throughout the film the assistant starts to play crueler and crueler tricks on her employer. The film is directed by Raúl Ruiz, and stars Daryl Hannah
Daryl Hannah
Daryl Christine Hannah is an American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s, notably Blade Runner, Splash, Wall Street and Roxanne and Kill Bill.-Early life:Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Susan...
as assistant Jane Ryder, and Tom Conti
Tom Conti
Thomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish actor, theatre director and novelist.-Early life:Born Thomas Conti in Paisley, Renfrewshire, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious...
as author Sir Paul. A Closed Book was filmed at Knebworth House
Knebworth House
Knebworth House is a country house in the civil parish of Knebworth in Hertfordshire, England.-History and description:The home of the Lytton family since 1490, when Thomas Bourchier sold the reversion of the manor to Sir Robert Lytton, Knebworth House was originally a genuine red-brick Late Gothic...
in the UK.
Plot
The film starts with a character named Sir Paul (Tom Conti) who is looking for an amanuensisAmanuensis
Amanuensis is a Latin word adopted in various languages, including English, for certain persons performing a function by hand, either writing down the words of another or performing manual labour...
he goes through several unsuccessful candidates until Jane Ryder (Daryl Hannah
Daryl Hannah
Daryl Christine Hannah is an American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s, notably Blade Runner, Splash, Wall Street and Roxanne and Kill Bill.-Early life:Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Susan...
) turns up and is intelligent and forthright. She is employed, and he explains about the house and introduces Mrs. Kilbride (Miriam Margoyles), the maid.
They have breakfast and go through their pet annoyance's with Sir Paul getting disproportionately angry about Jane saying "no problem". They start writing the book, and Sir Paul again gets very angry at Jane for not taking his instructions. Things run smoothly until Jane starts changing things ever so slightly like taking paintings out of their frames and turning them upside down. Sir Paul starts to suspect things when she sends Mrs. Kilbride home for a week without consulting him.
Sir Paul has a "terrific fear of the dark" and while singing in the bath he keeps thinking he hears noises, which are Jane making him scared. The noises he hears in the bath someone turning the light off, then Jane comes in naked and promises him that the light is on to reassure him. Her lying and sneaking becomes more and more important as she starts lying about Madonna dying and O.J. Simpson committing suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
and puts his books on the fire instead of lugs. Sir Paul starts becoming really suspicious when Mrs. Kilbride comes back to the house and finds a puzzle that Sir Paul asked Jane to get and it turns out to be the wrong puzzle and this particularly matters to Sir Paul as he wrote about the painting in his book and he gets very, very angry at her and starts to not trust her.
However, suspicions are assuaged when a conservative mp comes to his house to persuade him to vote for the conservative's and fear of sir Paul she responds positively to all his questions and reads what Jane wrote in his book which fortunately for Jane was all accurate.
However, Jane goes in for the kill and one day leaves suits of armour on the floor and displaces desks where she knows that Sir Paul will walk into them and books so he may slip and fall down the stairs. She then comes into the house.
Eventually, Sir Paul realises that Jane has an intention of killing him and in a showdown in his bedroom with Jane she tells him that her husband who had had a gallery showing at a prestigious sight had been criticised severely by Sir Paul and due to the material of his paintings the artist was arrested and put on suspicion of being a pedophile. After comparing Sir Paul to a closed book, Jane shoves him in the closet. She then leaves the house with Sir Paul screaming. She returns to the house out of guilt and not having the stomach to kill someone. She returns to the house to find that Sir Paul has escaped, then after Sir Paul points a gun at her and reveals to her that he is also a pedophile, he invites her to shoot him but she leaves and he is forced to shoot himself.
Cast
- Tom ContiTom ContiThomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish actor, theatre director and novelist.-Early life:Born Thomas Conti in Paisley, Renfrewshire, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious...
- Sir Paul - Daryl HannahDaryl HannahDaryl Christine Hannah is an American film actress. After making her screen debut in 1978, Hannah starred in a number of Hollywood films throughout the 1980s, notably Blade Runner, Splash, Wall Street and Roxanne and Kill Bill.-Early life:Hannah was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Susan...
- Jane Ryder - Miriam Margoyles - Mrs. Kilbride
- Simon MacCorkindaleSimon MacCorkindaleSimon Charles Pendered MacCorkindale was a British actor, film director, writer and producer. MacCorkindale spent much of his childhood moving around due to his father's commission with the Royal Air Force. Poor eyesight prevented him from following a similar career in the RAF, so he instead...
- Andrew Boles - Elaine PaigeElaine PaigeElaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...
- Canvasser - Ty Glaser - Jane's successor
Reception
Critical reception was overall poor, with a few exceptions. The TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
gave it one (out of five) stars and called it an "atrocious, creepy little film". The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
gave it 2 out of 5 stars, stating, "A Closed Book feels less like a thriller than an aesthete’s tease". The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
also gave a poor review and only 2 out of 5 stars, describing it as "a silly story about a blind art critic". Perhaps the most scathing is a review from Time Out London which gave the film only 1 star, finding "Raul Ruiz's apologists have their work cut out for them."
Anthony Quinn of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
gave it 3 out of 5 stars stating that "its sheer unlikeliness is what also keeps you hanging in there." Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
shows an average of 3.8 out of 10 based on twelve reviews, but 67% among non-professional critics.