Risque business
Mrs. Henderson Presents offers a backstage pass to a vaudeville theatre that's a bit on the naughty side.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published February 2, 2006
Aside from the sight of Bob Hoskins going full monty, Mrs. Henderson Presents is one of the season's movie delights, a backstage comedy based on an extraordinary morale-boosting effort during World War II.
The Windmill Theater in London's West End became a symbol of British resolve, proudly never closing despite German bombs and community pressure. It offered vaudeville entertainment with a twist, showcasing nude women posed like statues to skirt indecency laws, owned by someone akin to Mrs. Miniver in a family of showgirls.
Judi Dench embraces the role of Laura Henderson with a tart tongue and amazing grace that should earn an Oscar nomination. She's heartbreaking at first, grieving for her dead husband yet proper enough to save the tears for privacy. Laura soon tires of the widow routine, buying the Windmill and renovating it on a whim.
Hoskins plays Vivian Van Damm, a grumpy theater producer whose crude manner sharply contrasts with Laura's personality. Writer-director Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things) makes that combustible relationship a key part of his movie, a Tracy-Hepburn romancing built around one-liners and slow burns. Hoskins chews his cigar and the scenery a bit too much, but as the film's executive producer he's entitled.
Getting the Windmill running constantly puts Laura and Vivian at odds, with the actors swapping dry insults and rejecting each other's suggestions. There's also a growing unspoken affection, dashed when Laura learns that Vivian is married. Dench and Hoskins are fun to watch, although they don't do anything we haven't seen from them before. Martin Sherman's screenplay freshens the mix with delicious patter.
At its heart, though, Mrs. Henderson Presents simply wants to sing and dance, reviving the Windmill's erotically subdued routines in grand style. Frears assembled a lovely ensemble of models led by Kelly Reilly (Pride & Prejudice) as Maureen, whose soul gets bared as often as her body. The commotion caused by such artful nudity is quaintly humorous, with Christopher Guest affecting a stiff upper lip as the British lord complaining the most.
The film gets too sentimental at times, with Laura and Vivian both hiding family tragedies, and Maureen adding another. Laura's climactic stand in defense of queen and country against stodginess is a soapbox moment that only a pro such as Dench could pull off. Frears glides through Sherman's dramatic moments to keep the film focused on its more successful naughty bits.
Mrs. Henderson PresentsGrade: B
Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Kelly Reilly, Christopher Guest, Will Young, Thelma Barlow
Screenplay: Martin Sherman
Rating: R; frontal nudity, profanity
Running time: 103 min.