‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’ (1981): A Few Thoughts on a Postmodernist Movie

I’ve wanted to see this movie for a long time now. Here are my thoughts on Meryl Streep’s and Jeremy Irons’ performances, and more. Spoilers included.

Originally posted in Counter Arts on Medium on February 11, 2025

I just watched The French Lieutenant’s Woman, and while I was impressed with the acting, the movie didn’t bowl me over.

I loved the way it started, with Sarah on the jetty in her cape, turning her head to bore her gaze into poor Charles. I also appreciated the postmodernist device of the frame, of a story within another story. Still, I felt the Victorian-era story was too drawn out while also not fledged enough. There weren’t enough threads to it, enough ingredients in the pudding. Ultimately, it felt like a vanilla concoction. I like vanilla, but for a story that seemed to have bet on some spice, there wasn’t enough of the latter in the movie.

Meryl Streep played her part beautifully, as she always does, but I felt, nevertheless, that she was pushed into doing more mannerisms than powerful acting in the embedded story. When Sarah tells Charles her putative story about her involvement with the French lieutenant, I felt she was indulging in these mannerisms. Not so, however, when she was in bed with Charles — oh, I’ve spoiled that; but then it’s not much of a spoiler.

Lynsey Baxter as Ernestina, Charles’s fiancée, performed beautifully too. She was the demure yet fiery ingenue that her part called for. And the scene with Charles reneging on his marriage contract to her was a successful one in the movie.

Jeremy Irons was fabulous in both stories, which I expected. And, unlike Meryl Streep’s performance in the Victorian story, his wasn’t diluted by any affectations. He was real and his turmoil transpired in every bit of every scene. In the end, this resulted in his character overpowering that of Streep as Sarah, which is probably how it should have been. And I loved that Streep as Anna dominated him in the contemporary frame. Nevertheless, I’m still left with the disappointment that Streep didn’t show her full prowess in this film.

Of course, I understand that Sarah is a slippery fish and that Streep had to lead the viewer into believing Sarah was more than one way, but I still think the scene in the woods with her account of her supposed love affair wasn’t convincing. It would have been convincing if Sarah was partly mad, and maybe the movie wants to suggest that — in fact there is a scene about melancholy that does just that — , but I felt her character was only fickle, deluded in the sense of wanting to live in some stories she conjured, and manipulative.

The costumes and atmosphere of the Victorian streets, especially with that gloomy sky, were wonderful. But a movie is more than just visuals. Again, I felt it was lacking in story.

Okay, the present-day frame with Anna and Mike as lovers was strong, convincing, and always left us wanting to know more. In contrast, the Sarah and Charles story was much less intriguing. Gentleman falls for a woman with a wild streak in Victorian England. He either gets to be with her, or she ends up falling through the cracks of society or worse: dead. Or she finds a way to obscure her past and lead a rather decent life.

But then the movie seems to have put more interest in the framing device rather than in the Victorian story. And that framing succeeds well.

Streep and Irons not only feel very real and attractive as lovers, but their moments spent on the script and the scene where they act out part of the scene don’t diminish the impression of reality in the Victorian conceit but rather strengthen it. And they do so because Anna and Mike also share some historical facts, which makes it seem like they were also researchers of social history rather than only actors rehearsing or frolicking on the film set.

All in all, I’d say it was a well-put-together movie, but not a satisfying one.

Thank you for reading!

To a happier, healthier life,

Mira