I read Herman Melville's story long ago, and this is a modernization of it transferred to modern England, which naturally is a most controversial thing to do. The question is whether it is successful or not. The acting is superb, Paul Scofield has always been reliable, and John McEnery as the very timid clerk who simply can't co-operate because of his burden of complexes, makes a very credible and convincing impression, in all his hopeless disorientation in reality. He is lost in reality like a Kafka figure and can't find his way out, no matter how hard Paul Scofield as his benevolent employer tries to help him. It is a hopeless story of a hopeless case with only one possible kind of end, and it is as far from edifying as any story could be. Still it's nobody's fault. Nobody simply can't help someone who can't even help himself. What Herman Melville meant with his story can be discussed forever without any conclusion ever to be reached, since there simply are no answers, since the predicament is all tied up in a dead end. The film is grey and bleak, there is no cheer anywhere, although you might in the beginning find the situation laughably sabsurd, as Paul Scofield awkwardly learns he is dealing with a black hole of a hopeless case. Herman Melville wrote several stories of a very morbid nature, like as if he enjoyed documenting the destructive sides and elements of man, his great failure "Pierre" is perhaps the best example, and you must wonder why he still is worth reading and making films of.
