Look Back in Anger

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Product Description ------------------- A powerful adaptation of one of modern drama's most celebrated plays. Since it first premiered on London’s West End in 1956, John Osborne’s LOOK BACK IN ANGER has shocked audiences with its blunt portrayal of domestic realism. Now available for the first time on DVD, Academy Award®-nominee Kenneth Branagh (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and Academy Award®-winner Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility) star in this powerful Thames Television adaptation of Osborne’s enduring classic. LOOK BACK IN ANGER tells the simple but gripping story of Jimmy Porter (Kenneth Branagh), an angry young man with a college education and a dead-end job. Feeling trapped by his circumstances, his squalid post-war flat, and spurred on by self-pity, Porter lashes out against his wife, Allison (Emma Thompson), his lover, Helena (Siobhan Redmond), and his business partner, Cliff (Gerard Horan). Fierce, compassionate, funny, and ultimately cathartic, John Osborne's classic "kitchen sink" drama, as directed by Academy Award®-winner Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love), is a masterpiece of ensemble acting. DVD Features: An Angry Young Man: A Look Back at Look Back In Anger--An Interview with Kenneth Branagh; Cast Biographies; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection .com ---- When John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger debuted in 1956, the main character--ranting, relentless, infuriating Jimmy Porter--galvanized audiences and spoke for a young generation frustrated with stagnant life in postwar England. In this contemporary film adaptation, Jimmy Porter (Kenneth Branagh, Henry V, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein), an educated but unfulfilled man, runs a sweet shop and flails at his submissive wife Alison (Emma Thompson, Sense & Sensibility, Angels in America) and everyone else around him. Bitter and self-aggrandizing, Jimmy thinks he's the only one who sees through the suffocating illusions of bourgeois life; he excuses his verbal cruelties as attempts to goad others to wake up to life. Today, Jimmy's behavior may seem less like exhortations to live and more like domestic abuse, but there's no denying it's a juicy, complex role that Branagh digs into with gusto. Branagh's acting can often be vain and self-congratulatory, but here he's aggressive and doesn't shy away from Jimmy's unflattering aspects. Thompson gives a dependably smart and soulful performance. This TV movie version doesn't deviate from the stage production directed in 1989 by Dame Judi Dench (O-winner for Shakespeare in Love); it's Osborne's divisive play presented in all its warts and glory, with no cinematic tricks to cover anything up. In an extra feature, Branagh provides valuable historical context for both the play and the production. --Bret Fetzer