Synopsis
Hugo Barrett is a servant in the Chelsea home of indolent aristocrat Tony. All seems to go well until the playboy’s girlfriend Susan takes a dislike to the efficient employee. Then Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister Vera as a live-in maid, and matters take another turn for the worse…
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Cast
- Dirk BogardeHugo Barrett
- James FoxTony
- Sarah MilesVera
- Wendy CraigSusan
- Catherine LaceyLady Mounset
- Richard VernonLord Mounset
- Harold PinterPeople in Restaurant: Society Man
- Ann FirbankPeople in Restaurant: Society Woman
- Doris NolanPeople in Restaurant: Older Woman
- Patrick MageePeople in Restaurant: Bishop
Recommendations
- 100
Total Film
Losey creates an atmosphere of deepening claustrophobic menace shot through with episodes of savage black humour. - 100
The Guardian
It is a brilliant, subversive account of class relations and the changing times. - 100
Time Out London
It’s one of the most insightful films ever made about the British class system. - 100
Los Angeles Times
Glaciers might be melting, the polar caps might be crumbling, but not even the passage of half a century has taken the frozen edge off this brilliantly icy film. - 90
Village Voice
Mixing techniques as surely as it mixes class (graceful dolly shots are placed side by side with the handheld photography), the picture's clever formalist juxtapositions evoke the hysterical confusion of a culture in upheaval. - 90
The New York Times
Its account of patrician degradation will cause you to blink your eyes. Although it is only fiction, it wafts a thick and acrid air of smoldering truth. - 70
Variety
The Servant is for the most part strong dramatic fare, though the atmosphere and tension is not fully sustained to the end. - 60
Empire
Certainly difficult to define, this period piece messes with genres, power relationships and your head.
