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Metroland |  | Director: Philip Saville
Actors: Christian Bale, Emily Watson, Lee Ross, Elsa Zylberstein, John Wood
Studio: Universal Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.98
Buy New: $4.58
as of 3/15/2010 07:44 CDT details
You Save: $20.40 (82%)
New (13) Used (7) from $4.58
Seller: inetvideo
Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 16476
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Original Language), French (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 102 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 057373141649
EAN: 0057373141649
ASIN: B0000648YK
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Release Date: March 28, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Metroland, based on Julian Barnes's first novel, is a tale of midlife, middle-class malaise reminiscent of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. It's 1977, and shaggy-haired thirtysomething Chris (Christian Bale) has a lovely wife (Emily Watson) and baby, a solid office job, and a nice house in the London suburb of Metroland. Life is good, until the surprise arrival of old chum Toni (Lee Ross), whom Chris has not seen for 10 years and who was his accomplice in teenage shenanigans and heady visions of a bohemian life abroad. Toni, an inveterate ladies man and rootless poet, disdains his old friend's bourgeois milieu and feels it his duty to revive Chris's passion for women, art, and rock & roll. Meanwhile, Chris can't stop fantasizing about his steamier days as a 20-year-old in Paris with his sultry French girlfriend, and fails to notice that Toni covets his wife and that she has sexual desires of her own. While there's a palpable sexual energy in the movie's proceedings that adds a certain zing to the themes of angst and longing, their eventual epiphanies are disappointingly benign. Lee Ross's swashbuckling Toni and Emily Watson's intelligent, knowing wife carry the movie. --Rebecca Wright
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
 For all the idealistic youngsters(and everyone else, too) March 19, 2000
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is a really great, moving film about a kid and his pal who dream about getting out of their bourgeois, suburban, establishment, English way of life. They grow up, and one of the friends, Toni, is living the crazy vagabond artist life. The other, Chris, is living the life he always dreaded as an adolescent. But the thing is, he's happy. He's got a lovely wife, a baby, steady job and nice home. When Toni comes back and sees his friends "complacent" life, he feels obligated to shake him out of it. This is a very thoughtful and entertaining movie that makes you think: what really will make us happy is often what we resist the most.
The English look at 'The Big Chill': METROLAND February 2, 2008
All Red (USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you liked the 1985 classic The Big Chill which took a look at "thirtysomething" America as it froze it's '60's free-spirit into a glacier of forgotten aspirations,then Metroland is worth your while.A simpler and more intimate film than it's American cousin,"Metroland" is the English equivalent of watching the hippie-dippy days of bell-bottomed pants,pot and free love melting into the frozen tundra of Bourgeoisieland- or so we are lead to believe.Simple in plot and heavy in truly adept acting,"Metroland" tells the story of the comfortable married life of Chris and Marion Lloyd (Christian Bale and Emily Watson),a young thirtyish couple in the middle class neighborhood of Edgewood.They have a child,successful careers and the "English garden".Sex is at least every other day.So, what could be the problem?
Chris' boyhood best-bud Toni arrives after ten absent years.Toni (a deliciously wicked Lee Ross) is still living the '60's radical ideals,and the two worlds of sell-out and love-in collide in very palpable ways.Chris is forced to question every choice he has made along the way;he once had aspiratins of being a Parisian photographer;he had a sexy and direct French paramour named Annick (Elsa Zylberstein of Immortal Beloved); Chris actually had developed a loathing of all that was English.WHAT HAPPENED?.Toni actively pursues Chris into rethinking all his choices and his marriage and family.
What makes this film so compelling is the uniformly outstanding performances by the four principle actors.Bale and Watson deliver positively knockout performances, as Siskel and Ebert noted.It's true!.The pain and anger that Chris and Marion confront is real.The question that this film raises is "Do we ever know if our decisions are right?" Like "The Big Chill","Metroland" is not a location,but a state of mind that suggests that being bourgeois is a cop-out for not living your dreams.Are you presently where you thought you would be 20 years ago-or are you restless and questioning? Are you sorry that you are in Metroland? Watch this film,then.
There is loads of sex and frontal nudity in this film,so be warned if you are provincial.
A British "American Beauty" February 10, 2000
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Metroland" is the perfect example of a truly great film that fell through the cracks. It has great acting (Christian Bale and Emily Watson), a great soundtrack, and a great plot. It is about a man (Bale) with a wife (Watson) and child. He is, for the most part, happy with his existence. Then one of his old friends returns and reminds him of the life he left behind. I cannot stress enough how much people need to rise up, rent this, and make it a video success!
Metroland February 12, 2009
Christine C. Heffner (Mississippi, USA)
This movie was true to life of what most people go through in their lives. Everyday struggles tend to create problems at home and work and make one question the choices they have made. It is worth the purchase!
I Think I Relate More To This Movie Now Than I Would Have Not Long Ago April 30, 2009
Goodbye Cruel World (Under Your Skin)
Based on Julian Barnes popular-under-the-radar novel, 1999's Metroland is an enjoyable, well-acted film that makes great use of its period and setting and finds depth in a plot that could easily have become trite. The scenes set in 1960's Paris were every bit as good as the ones in Greater London of the 1970's, and the questions which torment Christian Bale's character, Chris, are eternal ones that sooner or later confront anyone with even a small degree of insight into himself. Exploring as it does the decision most people eventually make to take the safe path in life versus the road less traveled---in Chris' case the staid day to day existence of working and coming home every evening to his wife and daughter in the London suburbs instead of pursuing the wild life represented by his visiting friend Toni---Metroland truly is a far better movie than it has a right to be and any description of what it is about can only fall short of the experience of seeing a cast with so much talent take on some of the eternal questions that go hand in hand with growing up and discovering who we are. Ultimately this rather quiet trip into one man's life at the point where his past, present and would-be future meet deserves a repeat viewing as there is so much going on within that never gets said in the direct sense and which rewards a viewer perspicacious enough to discern it. Metroland is not a great film but it's certainly a very good one with both Emily Watson and a pre-A-list Christian Bale delivering better performances than you'll see out of Hollywood. It's a film worth owning and worth taking off the shelf and watching now and again.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 15
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