The Rachel Papers is a 1989

1989 in film

-Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million...

 British film based on the novel of the same name

The Rachel Papers (novel)

The Rachel Papers is Martin Amis' first novel, published in 1973 by Jonathan Cape.- Plot :The Rachel Papers tells the story of Charles Highway, a bright, egotistical teenager and his relationship with his girlfriend in the year before going to university...

 by Martin Amis

Martin Amis

Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...

. It stars Dexter Fletcher

Dexter Fletcher

Dexter Fletcher is an English actor. He is best known for his role in Guy Ritchie film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels as well as television roles in such shows as the dramedy Hotel Babylon, the critically acclaimed HBO series Band of Brothers and earlier in his career, the children's show...

 and Ione Skye

Ione Skye

Ione Skye Lee is an English-born American actress, who became a teen idol after the 1989 movie Say Anything.... In 2006 VH1 placed her at number 84 in the "100 Greatest Teen Stars" list.-Early life:...

 as the two main characters, and a number of famous names in supporting roles such as Jonathan Pryce

Jonathan Pryce

Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...

, Bill Paterson, James Spader

James Spader

James Todd Spader is an American actor best known for his eccentric roles in movies such as Pretty in Pink, Less Than Zero, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Crash, Stargate, and Secretary...

, Jared Harris

Jared Harris

Jared Francis Harris is a British character actor, well known for playing the obnoxious Mac McGrath in the Adam Sandler film Mr. Deeds, and for his portrayal of Lane Pryce on the AMC series Mad Men.- Personal life :...

, Claire Skinner

Claire Skinner

Claire L. Skinner is an English actress, who is well known in the United Kingdom for her television career.-Biography:Born and brought up in Hemel Hempstead, Skinner, the youngest daughter of a shopkeeper and an Irish-born secretary, was immensely shy as a child...

, and Michael Gambon

Michael Gambon

Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...

.

Voice-over

With the original novel having described both emotional and physical experiences told from a narrative point of view, Dexter Fletcher conveys this stance by performing occasional "asides" to the audience and often "monologuing" to the camera in a style similar to the posture adopted by Matthew Broderick

Matthew Broderick

Matthew Broderick is an American film and stage actor who, among other roles, played the title character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adult Simba in The Lion King film series, and Leo Bloom in the film and Broadway productions of The Producers.He has won two Tony Awards, one in 1983 for his...

 in the 1986 American film Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by John Hughes.The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller , who decides to skip school and spend the day in downtown Chicago...

. This has often led to critics citing the film as the UK's answer to the American one, although aside from the monologuing, the two films are otherwise largely dissimilar in terms of plot and characters.

Plot

Nineteen year old Charles (Fletcher) is a highly sexed and precociously intelligent teenager about to attend Oxford University. Before he does he intends to use all his charm and intelligence to seduce a beautiful American girl, Rachel (Skye). Charles becomes completely besotted by Rachel, and after numerous rebuffs he eventually forges a friendship with her. Things become complicated, however, and his strategy becomes threatened. Rachel already has a boyfriend, DeForest (Spader); however, he is a control freak who does not treat her particularly well. With help from his sister Jenny, his lunatic brother-in-law Norman (Pryce) and best friend and big brother mentor Geoff (Harris), Charles eventually manages to lure Rachel away from DeForest, and his father Gordon (Paterson) is impressed with Charles' new quarry; however, as the unlikely relationship develops, Charles discovers that his seemingly "perfect" woman has numerous dislikeable habits and personality traits, just like all of the other "lesser" girls he has previously seduced. Irritated by some of Rachel's habits, Charles grows bored and is seduced by, and later sleeps with, his old flame Gloria (Skinner), ending his relationship with Rachel, who subsequently moves to New York. Charles still ends up going to Oxford University, but he does not enjoy his life there, feeling that his life is missing something following the end of his relationship with Rachel.She and Charles accidentally meet up again in a museum there and spend the whole day together, but at the end, Rachel kisses him only on the cheek, and leaves. We hear Charles in voiceover saying that he tried to remember William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

's quotation about love being eternal, so that he could say it to Rachel, but was unable to. Charles then finally realises, all too late, that he had in fact fallen genuinely in love with Rachel while he was with her and regrets his actions, but is forced to face the reality that he has now probably lost her forever.

Reception

Internationally, the film did little serious business commercially when released outside Europe and was a box office flop when released in the United States.