The Song of Lunch (2010 TV Movie) User Reviews

An Erotic Lunch

[miss_lady_ice-853-608700 · 8/10 · 14 October 2012]

Alan Rickman plays a jaded publisher meeting a past flame (Emma Thompson) at an old haunt, now impersonally renovated. The publisher has a one-track mind and views her every move as erotic.

This is a dramatised narrative poem. I'm sceptical about modern poetry but this one's quite good. It may be familiar ground but a lot of the phrases are actually quite good: consciously poetic but a concise description. Fans of Alan Rickman might find it hard to control himself as his character is aroused by everything: a squeezed hand, a glass of wine meeting his lips, a comely waitress, even a pepper shaker. The story is told through his perspective, much of it as voice-over. The switch between voice-over and dialogue really works, creating tension and drama in what is a fairly undramatic scene. It's like a short play.

Both Rickman and Thompson speak the blank verse (with the occasional rhyme) very naturally. Their characters are intellectual people and the talk comes naturally to them, particularly Rickman's emotionally/creatively/sexually frustrated character.

It's only 50 minutes so it's worth a watch. It would have been nice if it were part of a series of poems.

Great film that hold the original poem by the hand

[mariam-bayat-n · 7/10 · 4 December 2012]

A beautiful tale of two long lost lovers that doesn't fail to lift your spirit. Despite only being a short film I enjoyed it very much. Perfectly assembled with great cinematography which compliments the original poem greatly. The melancholy and passion between the protagonists were definitely sustained through out the film steering it away from titles bearing names such as Depressing-love-story-for-the-over-40s or a Horny- middle-aged-people-have-a-rendez-vous. No better actors could have been picked for this. A brilliant performance on behalf of both Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson who portray the characters exact to how I had imagined them to be.

All in all 'tis a great film. However, I advise people to read the book first before watching the film.

What is important is the story of the words they are saying to each other.

[info-510-415409 · 8/10 · 20 February 2014]

An existential parable of a wistful journey to ones heady youth with the excitement and bitterness of the time trapped in the mind. A former romance is re-evaluated by the rose coloured filter of time but confronted by the present. Time has moved on but the past has trapped the author.

This is wonderfully written and played. Apparently not one word was added or removed from the book/poem of the same name. The words and style encapsulated an era, a culture and a place. From my perspective it was authentic but for a North American audience the language may not travel as well.

To enjoy, ignore the characters they are not important, the moment you root for one character over the other the poem will fail (they are called He and She). What is important is the story of the words they are saying to each other.

For me I strongly identified with the nostalgic myopia. However I wonder how a younger audience would embrace it? My only criticism was that the colour grading was a little cute.

I was captivated by it.

The pain of lunch

[paul2001sw-1 · 9/10 · 8 October 2010]

Christopher Reed's poem 'The Song of Lunch' is brought brilliantly to life here by Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson, two fine actors and, though like most actors they sometimes waste time (and make money, no doubt) in rubbish, here we see them both at the top of their games. Rickman has the harder role, since he also has to narrate the verse; but Thompson handles herself excellently opposite him, never attempting to claim a larger space than is available but filling what is there perfectly. The story is a classic male tragedy, of a drunken middle-aged man whose awareness of his own increasing unattractiveness is a self-fulfilling prophesy; but the observation and psychology are razor sharp, and the words clear and cutting. It could be thought a bold move to dramatise a poem; but with this level of quality at all levels, perhaps the success of this project was never really in doubt.

Best adaption of a poem to film I have seen

[jgw321 · 10/10 · 15 October 2010]

It is not easy to transfer poetry to film. Poetry does not tell a story like a simple novel, with the plot explained in logical prose. Instead it approaches the subject sideways; with ideas, hints and suggestions with which, by enrichment from your own experience, you arrive at a shadowy glimpse of something profound about what it is to be human.

This films achieves this in just the same way that a poem does. It is a brilliant film that I could watch over and over again, getting more from it each time. This is because the poem and film are catalysts to the beholder's share, which will be different each time I view as my mood changes, and my experiences grow.

If you don't understand poetry then this film could be rather bleak, since it dwells on ageing, lost love, mortality and similar themes. If you accept that these themes are ever present in our daily lives and we have to come to terms with them, and you understand and enjoy poetry then this is a must see film for you.

The saddest words, it might have been

[infodaddy · 1 April 2013]

He came close to his fantasy, a renewal. But shortly let his mind take him down a trail of various sorts of negativity. He was on that line a bit, a line where he could have been witty and upbeat and challenging, a line he crossed into torpor and, well, annoyance, and more.

Or perhaps He knew something the other reviewers here (and they are a very solid group of reviewers) did not know: That She too wanted a renewal. Though her words bely that possibility, well into the film, she touches his hand in a way that is personal and perhaps a bit erotic. Perhaps in her wonderful life with a successful author and two nondescript kids, she would like to recoup her past with He.

Perhaps He knew this, and sabotaged it. If so, Why?

The subject that screenwriters love to chat about, subtext, comes up. I thought the Mamet fiasco, PHIL SPECTOR, had the characters all delivering subtext as dialogue. Thus there was no mystery. Here, however, the subtext was given us in his unspoken words, his thoughts, as voice-over dialogue in his own head. Perambulating in his skull. It worked.

For Rickman, I find this his second most compelling work, the first being CLOSET LAND (which I saw on a Saturday night in a popular movie theater, but only me in the room for that film). Both works exploit his rich voice.

A beautiful but empty goblet

[profusionk · 7/10 · 8 October 2010]

Well written and extremely well acted but ultimately a very depressing story that, though nicely worded and clever, ultimately is an overwrought adoration of patheticness. Alan Rickman is fabulous as the central character who narrates his own thoughts as they occur to him during his lunch with the equally fabulous Emma Thompason. He reads the lines with such emotion and clarity, the problem is the lines and plot itself. Perhaps I should feel pathos for the central character, and perhaps I am just not "artistic" enough to reflexively identify portrayal of negativity as fine literature, but mostly I just thought what a sad waste of acting talent and thus ultimately unredeeming.

Art is controversial, and to me this is what art is about. Real people with real lives.

[kamuijjang88 · 9/10 · 25 August 2012]

It hasn't come to my knowledge yet that this short movie is acted out of a poem, and I have no interest in contemporary poems to go take a peek in the book. But I gotta say, I've read a lot of negative reviews here and I wonder why. But art is controversial, that's for sure.

This piece of work is beautiful, peaceful in a sense, and has a lot of emotion. Which is something mainstream movies nowadays are not aiming at anymore. Just old people back flashed their old lives. Just an old man being nostalgic in an old place and haven't been able to move on since he lost the love of his life. Now that's an POV because from her point of view maybe the story will be totally reversed and he will appeared as an arse, which I don't really care. Some has mentioned how the feeling is so horrible it almost haunted me, I was so scared when I was watching him getting drunk and I know almost right away what's gonna happen. Just old and typical stuff, nothing new, so true, so real. And people move on like that. But I understand the feeling constantly, even though I'm not that old, but that feeling of loss I do bring.

I have watched this and then listened to it again and it made me feel very, very bitter hearing Alan's voice telling the story and I feel very bad. This could be you, this could be me, this could be anyone, and I know this has happened, is happening, and will happen to lots of people out there. I don't know what art is supposed to mean, I think Frankfurt intellectuals might have more saying in this than me, for they spent a certain amount of time to argue whether or not art is supposed to enhance the creation of the elitist or art is for the majority of people. Or they would be arguing the same thing, art for the sake of art or art for the sake of humanity.

Severus Snape and Sybil Trelawney having lunch.

[shashank_1501 · 7/10 · 4 January 2024]

To all the Harry Potter nerds, Alan Rickman narrating for a whole 50 mins. In a film, what else do you need?

The song of Lunch is my recent find while browsing through the filmography of Emma Thompson. With run-time less than an hour, this TV movie is a poetic monologue of a struggling writer who's having a lunch date with his ex-lover. The whole movie shot from the POV of Rickman who's still obsessed with Thomson after all these years of their separation. Shot in an Italian restaurant on the streets of London where the two used to hang out while they were young, this drama clearly emphasizes on how the guy has remained stuck up to his long gone romantic venture while lady has moved on with her life and is there only for a formal reunion. The way he looks at her while drinking the wine and remembering the time they had together is a treat to watch.

If you like watching two people having random conversation, you will definitely like this.

A great and rare Poem Based film.

[lmossh · 9/10 · 15 March 2023]

Combining the art of filmmaking and the art of poetry is extremely difficult, very complex undertaking for any director. It is much easier and with more opportunities to just film from a screenplay, where dialogue can flow with no absolute firm structure, do an actor can or director can change a word or two or more. No one can improvise working with a poem. Song of Lunch works like a fine waltz. Christopher Reid's poem is brilliant, as are Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson who dance his stanzas, as we hear them narrated by Rickman. The pacing of this film is so well done that we are are pulled in immediately and stay in pace up until the ending.

A lunch date gone wrong

[Red-125 · 9/10 · 20 November 2021]

The Song of Lunch (2010 TV Movie) was written and directed by Niall MacCormick. It's a short film (adapted from a poem) about two former lovers who meet for lunch in London after 15 years.

Alan Rickman works in a publishing house and is angry and misanthropic. Emma Thompson now lives in Paris and is married to a highly successful author.

Rickman looks old and acts angry. Thompson looks young and acts happy. One of the reasons Rickman is unhappy is that he realizes what his life with Thompson could have been, but never will be.

It's an unusual movie, and it's wonderful in it's very sad way. Of course, Rickman was very skilled, and Dame Emma is a so talented that her ability defies description.

It's no surprise that this movie has a strong IMDb rating of 7.5. I thought that it was even better than that, and rated it 9.

The Song of Losing My Lunch

[elfdorado · 3/10 · 29 January 2012]

This would have been unwatchable (and even unlistenable) had it not been for Rickman and Thompson. The writing is tedious, clichéd, and overwrought and every "insight" banal. There is even a slight mystery whose solution you can see from space. Why anyone would have decided to film this ridiculous poem is beyond me; I suppose the poet had some good connections.

As it is, Rickman is too perfect for the role. His looks and his voice too easily lend themselves to the pathetic and the desperate. He gets to both too quickly, partly because the language and narrative take him there and partly because the language, bad as it is, made me feel worse for him, made me pity him as an actor, thus creating another uncomfortable distraction. All that pity so soon and in one layer too many made me lose patience with the whole production. I kept hoping for something more, thinking that Rickman and Thompson would never have been involved with something this bad unless it offered something real and true. Instead, I think their participation has to do with the work ethic of the English actor: you must never take a break, you must always be acting. And if you can do a well-produced project with another excellent actor, then why not do it? Maybe other friends or respected colleagues were on board. I can't think of any other reasons why Thompson and Rickman would have done this. Sigh.

Unusual short movie, a poem brought to life.

[TxMike · 6 June 2012]

Less than an hour long, this is an interesting type of "different" film. It is actually a poem, recited by the protagonist, as we see the lunch meeting acted out.

Alan Rickman, one of the fine underrated actors of our time is the man, the protagonist. He has arranged a lunch date with his old flame, Emma Thompson as the lady. They had not seen each other in quite a long time. In the film they are only known as 'He' and 'She'.

I happen to like both Rickman and Thompson and here they are good together, but actually separate. It is clear that She has let their relationship go a long time ago but He hasn't. She comes across as happy and interesting, He comes across as bitter and tense. She politely takes a glass of wine, and 'nurses' it, while He drinks too much and has to order a second bottle.

Frankly I don't recall the text of the poem, but it fit as I watched the film. Interesting short film, less than one hour, a contrast of personalities.

Deft fusion of poetry and filmmaking

[Indywritertype · 10/10 · 5 September 2022]

I sat down to watch this for a second time in years and was immediately pulled in again by the clever vitriol of the male character with his witty and brutally honest musings. He is wasted potential personified, recognizing many of his own failings - right up to the point of changing anything, which he refuses to do. It's just easier to curl up around a bitter glass of restaurant chianti and bleat on about how all change is for the worse.

Joining him at the restaurant, the woman breezes into the picture, all lightness and controlled gladness - the picture of elegance and change personified. She is genuinely happy to see him and ready to scoop him into a reminiscence of nostalgic affection but he won't let go of his anger at her leaving him. He refuses to truly see himself and twists their reunion into an internal pity party that manifests in leers and snide comments. And still, he is somehow a sympathetic character (oh thank you, Alan Rickman). You understand her affectionate regard, but also her healthy detachment.

The poem is fascinating and the screenplay adaptation is practically perfect in every way. The beautiful photography and luscious sound editing propels this poem into an incarnate, omnisensory, and very human experience.

The Song of a Life Lost

[srooks1 · 9/10 · 15 November 2021]

Two former lovers meet over lunch to talk of life. Through the lyricism of poetry, the two lovers discover that one lives, and the other has never lived. Two wonderfully textured performances by Rickman and Thompson. Truly poetic gem.

Two Former Lovers Meet for Lunch and Fail to Reconnect

[[e-mail] · 8/10 · 19 November 2011]

The title of this review just about says it all. Except, of course, that the two former lovers are portrayed by Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman, who could probably do a satisfying reading of the telephone book. Except that Rickman's character gets drunk and disappears to take a nap on the roof, there isn't much action in this film. The drama lies entirely in the subtle (and not so subtle) interactions of He and She. He appears to be a disappointed academic who would like to rekindle his relationship with She. She is cool, sophisticated, cautious and soon repelled by He's behavior. (Eventually She pays the bill and leaves. ( He, having awakened from his nap finds the table empty.) Not much of a plot to be sure, and the dialog is nothing special. But it is ever a pleasure to watch Thompson and Rickman in action and they inhabit their roles with characteristic conviction. The viewer learns a lot about He and She, not so much from what is said or done, but from how the two actors play off one another.

Deliverance with Dignity

[ticketbooth · 10/10 · 22 February 2011]

I would call this "Deliverance with Dignity"

I will attempt to write it, however it will be in her words. Oh, and there will be words. I have been here, only it was after 12 years. And it was markedly a déjà vu experience. A women scored in her youth casting out the last word with very few. It seems she finally got her finest hour. Whilsest the X received his just desserts and a tall order of reality. His verbal digression, animosity, sloth, and slurp all came pouring out of bottle and tongue. He was at best just a tempest in a teapot and she no longer takes one or two lumps but indeed delivers them.

A powerful presentation

Rickman and Thompson in Top Form

[info-73150 · 8/10 · 15 November 2021]

This film is not going to be for everyone. I knew that just five minutes in. But I loved it. The poem, the dialogue, the acting. Any lesser actors than these two could not have pulled it off. It is heartbreaking, because fairly early in, it becomes clear that someone has a problem and it is this issue, along with other feelings of inadequacy that is the true root of their relationship's demise. What is especially interesting is the fact that the viewer doesn't despise Rickman's character--rather, feels his humiliation and loss.

I gave the film eight stars rather than 10, because unresolved for me is the "WHY" of it. Why does he ask her to meet him for lunch to begin with? Is it to punish her? To rekindle something? Is the scene outside the apartment in Paris meant to illustrate obsession? Why does she agree to meet? Is she just being kind? If so--then why is she so cruel in her assessment of his book? The motivation/impetus for this lunch feels unclear to me.

An ironic send-up of poetic idiom?

[mflint22 · 3/10 · 14 November 2011]

Returning from New York City where I had so much enjoyed Alan Rickman and four wonderful young actors in the play "Seminar" at the Golden Theater, I was excited to watch "The Song of Lunch" last night.

In addition I am a big fan of Emma Thompson, and of the films "Truly, Madly Deeply" and "Sense and Sensibility," films in which she and Alan Rickman perform so brilliantly together. So it was with high expectations that I sat down to watch "Lunch."

The acting was indeed impeccable and I would have enjoyed the cinematography, sets and costumes …had the language not been so deeply disappointing. This writing might have been forgiven only if coming from a seventeen year old, or offered as an ironic send-up of poetic idiom. Over written, pretentious and predictable, as 'profusionk' suggests above, writing such as this gives poetry a bad name.

I am surprised that BBC drama chose to dramatize this script.

Sorry to be so harsh…but

Unbelievably bad

[Huke650 · 13 November 2011]

This is the worst thing I've seen since My Dinner with Andre over thirty years ago. It's worse than Hook, worse than Australia, worse than the worst action movie I used to take my teenage son to see to humor him.

Is he supposed to be unlikable, or merely a bore?

What could she have possibly ever seen in him?

Who cares about his "poetry"?

The lines are unbearable, not to mention childishly vulgar, when not being unintentionally laughable.

Is this what "art" has become, ridiculously pretentious, lacking in content, causing one to itch with utter boredom?

Brilliant singers, bilious song

[jasherjasher · 1/10 · 26 March 2012]

I was watching PBS last night only to see that Masterpiece Contemporary is going to rebroadcast this next Sunday, which completely ruined my usual pleasant anticipation of what is to come next. I saw this last year when PBS first aired it, and not only was it a waste of time, it was so awful that the depressing awfulness stayed with me long after I watched it. If you really want to see the pointless waste of life and love come to its grimy, inescapable, petty and all-too-human end, watch this. If you want to be depressed and left feeling used after watching, you'll not be disappointed, I promise.

But what's really sad is that two of the greatest actors in British theater -- both brilliant and even believable in this completely self-absorbed, anal-retentive, unceasingly self-obsessive string-of-consciousness piece of crap -- selected this dog to perform in anyway. I was struck by how luminous Emma Thompson still is and how beautifully she has aged, and Alan Rickman is, well, the delight that Alan Rickman always is. And yet even these two could not retrieve the show, or give any hope to their characters' existence.

In fact, now that I think about it, it is entirely possible that their brilliant acting made it as bad as it was, but that just brings me back to my original point: brilliant "singers" but the "song" is still nauseating. If it's the excellence of Alan Rickman's acting that watching his character seriously reminds me of someone who obsessively studies their own boogers and scabs in private, that's not his fault, but proof of both his own talent and the complete uselessness of the character he's playing. Perhaps that's the art of the piece, but it's just not my cup of tea.

I don't want to give spoilers; I will just say that the most extreme definitions one could ever place on the words "narcissistic" and "selfish" are understatements when applied to this plot and its dreary execution. The problem is NOT the actors, it's the play itself. It's depressing as hell and, for me, utterly pointless.

Definitely read all the reviews before watching, because it may be that you are one of the folks who finds the art in this piece and would be absolutely delighted with it. I, unfortunately, am not. I love these particular two players in just about anything -- they could act the phonebook as far as I'm concerned -- but this play is just a depressing dog from start to bitter, useless end, and I felt honor bound to warn others.

Not the Way Our Thought Processes Work

[Planar_Being · 2/10 · 5 July 2022]

If this is stream of consciousness, working in real time, this mind/brain must have an awesome editor because, no matter how drunk the guy gets, he's remarkably clear in his production of words. To call it poetry is a misnomer. It's heavily worked over, dull prose, superficial and predictable. It looks like they knocked this thing out in a few hours, not much effort involved.