Touchstone and Beyond: "Feast of July"
Feature Presentation: Feast of July
Cast of Characters
- Embeth Davidtz as Bella Ford
- Tom Bell as Ben Wainwright
- Kenneth Anderson as Matty Wainwright
- Ben Chaplin as Con Wainwright
- James Purefoy as Jedd Wainwright
- Greg Wise as Arch Wilson
Elevator Pitch
Bella Ford is in a terrible state. After giving birth to a stillborn child, she is taken in by the Wainwright family, where she meets their three sons Matty, Con, and Jedd. As the days go by, and Bella is asked to stay with the family, she starts to get comfortable and develop relationships with the three sons.
Jedd and Con at one point get into a fight over Bella, and while this creates tension in the household, Bella pleads with Con not to fight over her. When Bella learns that Arch Wilson lives in the town as well, he is the father of her dead child, she wants to leave. Mrs. Wainwright would love to see her go as her presence has pitted her sons against each other, but Con intercedes and gets her to stay.
Con proposes to Bella, and while they are out boating, they encounter Arch. Words are said, and enraged by what he says to Bella, Con attacks Arch and kills him with a stone. They flee, but not for long.
Unable to live with himself over what he did, Con turns himself in. They meet once more before Con is executed, and while Bella travels to Dublin, she touches her stomach as if knowing she is pregnant with Con’s child.
The Orson Welles Award of Brilliance
The English countryside is quite lovely and always looks majestic on the screen in any Merchant Ivory film.
Ben Chaplin delivers an incredible headbutt in the first thirty minutes of the film. This was remarkable.
The Alan Smithee Award of Anonymity
I could not care for Bella at all. Her character has no warmth or passion inside of her that would make me empathize with her plight, nor hope for her happiness. She destroyed the Wainwright family. The Wainwrights took pity on her, and now they will never be the same.
Con Wainwright was not the brightest bulb in the home, nor was he the most gifted in his courting of Bella. Con’s anger seems irrational and unrealistic.
There seemed to be a level of disbelief throughout the picture. Every time something significant happened, the characters felt stale in their approach to the events.
Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright are also to blame for the tragedy that took place. You don’t take a stranger into your home and keep them there when they start to upset the happy home that you have always had.
Production Team
Directed by Christopher Menaul
Produced by Touchstone Pictures / Merchant Ivory Productions / Peregrine Productions
Written by H.E Bates / Christopher Neame
Release Date: October 13, 1995
Budget: $7.5 million
Domestic Box Office Gross: $293,274
Deep Dive Behind the Scenes
- The chemistry on screen between Chaplin and Davidtz led to the two actors dating in real life.
- The film’s opening weekend gross was almost $300 hundred thousand.
- The film currently holds a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Film critic Roger Ebert did not enjoy this film. He found the ending bleak, the characters not well developed, and the emotional shifts in the melodrama to be difficult to follow.
Bill’s Spicy Take
Just because it is a period piece set in the English countryside and produced by Merchant Ivory Films doesn’t mean that the film will not be terrible.
Oscar Thoughts
(These rankings are awarded based on my love for Hitchcock films)
{Frenzy Award-Skip this Film, Torn Curtain Award-Desperate for Something to Watch, For the Birds-A Perfect Film for Any Device, Rear Window Award- You Must Watch This Film on a Big Screen because this film is cinema.}
Feast of July gets my Frenzy Award. The jarring nature of the tone changes throughout the film is one reason alone to skip the movie, but the lack of development in the characters and the pitiful injection of emotional meaning is so lacking that I struggled in not turning the movie off.
Skip this movie, you don’t need to see it.
Coming Attractions
Next week a look back at the erotic thriller Color of Night.