The bittersweet award winning Hotel du Lac was one of Screen Two's most repeated film. The BBC seemed to put it on each time there was a strike on or they needed to put something on at short notice.
Screenwriter Christopher Hampton who has gone on to win two Oscars as a writer. Has distilled the essence of Anita Brookner's Booker prize winning novel.
Edith Hope (Anna Massey) is a middle aged, romance writer who is single. She is rather plain looking and her friends think that she will soon be confined to be left on the shelf.
However she has been having an affair with a married man David (Barry Foster) who comes to Edith, when he needs her. Edith rapidly did get engaged to marry another man but she jilted him at the altar. A move that upset her friends.
Now she has gone to a hotel on a lakeside in Switzerland to find herself. It is out of season as she observes and interacts with the other guests of the hotel. All female until the charming Mr Neville (Denholm Elliott) arrives.
He proposes marriage to Edith, not out of love but companionship. Edith can even have other lovers discreetly, but she finds Mr Neville is just another womaniser.
The film is touching, wistful, sorrowful and slightly humorous. Especially as Edith first believes that guest Jennifer Pusey (Julia McKenzie) is in her 20s when she is much older and a maneater. Much to the disgust of her mother who seems to want to keep her daughter infantilized.