Eileen Atkins

Russell Crowe plays the legendary figure of 13th century England, who along with his band of marauders confronts corruption in the village and leads an uprising against the crown.

Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) works as a jingle writer for television commercials in Manhattan, a job not in keeping with his one-time aspiration to be a jazz composer and pianist. We see him at work and he is very good at what he does. However, his boss does not seem impressed with his latest output. As Harvey departs for London to attend his daughter Susan's wedding, his boss actually suggests that he spend more time there than he had originally planned. Harvey declines, making the point that he needs to be back for an upcoming pitch to an old client. His boss insists that it is being done by other musicians, and that Harvey's latest work was his last chance to keep his job. On the plane, Harvey tries to chat up a fellow passenger, but she is having none of it. He is left sitting there with egg on his face and we come to regard him as even more of a loser. Meanwhile, we witness the mildly strained relationship between Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), a single Londoner, and her mother, whose husband left years earlier. Kate tries to reassure her mother that despite being single, she may yet find a man. Further, Kate tells her mom to quit worrying about the new Polish neighbor who has moved in next door and seems to be stacking a lot of firewood. Upon arrival at Heathrow Airport in London, Harvey encounters Kate at her job collecting statistics from passengers as they pass through the terminals. She attempts to question him about his reasons for visiting the UK. Tired and anxious to get to his hotel, Harvey brusquely dismisses her when she approaches him to ask questions. Harvey heads for the hotel to check in and discovers that he is the first one to arrive. Upon calling his daughter to double check where everyone else is when they were all supposed to be staying together, he learns that his ex-wife Jean actually rented a house to accommodate family and friends from the States and he is the only one at the hotel. After a brief nap, he showers and hurriedly dresses. On the way to the rehearsal dinner in the taxi cab, he realizes the anti-shoplifting device is still attached to the sleeve of his jacket. And to make matter worse, he has worn a white suit (thinking this was requested) while all the other men wore black. During the meal, it becomes increasingly clear Harvey is considered a mere guest and the role of father of the bride has been delegated to Jean's husband Brian. To add insult to injury, Brian stands to give the toast, and recollects the vacation they all spent in Rome, and his stepson-in-law-to-be embraces him and calls him Dad. Just before leaving back to his hotel, when Harvey tells Susan (with whom he has shared a strained relationship since his divorce) that he will be attending the ceremony but not the subsequent reception because he needs to return to the States for an important meeting, she informs him she has asked Brian to give her away. Meanwhile, Kate is set up on a blind date by a well meaning co-worker that does not go well. When she returns to the table after taking yet another call from her mother, she discovers her younger date has invited some of his younger friends to join them. Feeling unwanted and excluded from the conversation, she eventually excuses herself and goes home. As it turns out, Kate's increasingly neurotic mother seems convinced that her Polish neighbor is some kind of murderer because she sees him toting strange looking, lumpy packages into a shed in the back yard. The following morning Harvey attends Susan's wedding, but heavy traffic delays his arrival back to Heathrow, and he misses his plane. When he calls his boss Marvin in NYC to inform him he will be returning a day later than planned and that he will try to get there as soon as possible, he is told that he is fired. In his glum mood, Harvey makes his way to the airport bar and starts slugging down scotch, determined to drown his sorrows. Kate is sitting in the lounge reading a novel and drinking wine when she notices Harvey. She makes a barb to him about the drinking being a big help to whatever is bothering him and he fires back about her reading a trashy novel and drinking chardonnay not being so much better. They gradually warm to each other over the course of their salads. After an awkward goodbye at the exit, where Harvey wistfully watches Kate walk away, he decides to follow her to the Heathrow Express and upon arrival at Paddington station, asks if he can walk her to her writing class on the South Bank. She accepts his offer and is pleased when he offers to meet her after class. As they stroll along the River Thames, Harvey mentions he is missing Susan's wedding reception, and Kate urges him to go. He finally relents, but only if she will accompany him. When Kate insists she is not properly dressed for such an occasion, Harvey buys her a dress and the two head to the Grosvenor House Hotel, where they are welcomed warmly by Susan and her new husband Scott. When the father of the bride is called upon to make a toast, Brian rises and begins to speak until Harvey taps his glass and reminds him who the real father of the bride is. He then delivers an eloquent speech that redeems him with his daughter and endears him to Kate. Following the reception, Harvey and Kate walk and talk until dawn. They exchange a single, gentle kiss and agree to meet again at noon at the same place, a cafe near a water park. They are both excited about the upcoming rendezvous, but after running up the hotel stairs too quickly, Harvey suffers an attack of arrhythmia! Paramedics rush him to the hospital, where he protests to doctors that he is fine and must leave to meet someone. The doctors insist that he must stay for further tests. Kate buys some flowers and does her makeup in anticipation of seeing Harvey again. She waits at the cafe where they agreed to meet, yet he is still in the hospital, unbeknownst to Kate. After a long time waiting, she leaves alone, crushed and rueful. Harvey immediately attempts to contact Kate after he is released from the hospital, but is surprised to receive a call from his ex-boss Marvin, who explains how his superiors like Harvey's latest work so much that he wants him to return to his job right away. Harvey pauses and then tells Marvin that he no longer wants the job. Kate visits her mother again and discovers that the Polish neighbor has left a rather large smoked ham. Turns out that he is not a killer after all, just a meat smoker. Kate then returns to her job taking surveys at the airport, and when Harry calls her there, she refuses to take his call. Harvey rushes to the airport to redeem himself with Kate but she has left for the day. Her workmates are suspicious of him at first but know that she likes him, and let him know that she is at her writing class. He tracks her down after class and reveals why he missed their rendezvous. Overly cautious about romance because of so many past disappointments, Kate initially resists his suggestion that they see what the future might bring them, but finally agrees to give things a chance. When she asks Harvey how it will work, he replies that he does not know, "But it will, I promise you that." As they walk away, Kate takes off her shoes to make her closer in height to the shorter Harry. He says, "I think you're my kind of girl." When he recalls that she never did ask him the questions from her airport survey, she asks for his name and residence, to which he replies, "I'm in transition." Over the end credits, we see that Kate's mom has gone to visit her Polish neighbor to thank him for the ham. The neighbor invites her to come into his house, and after some feigned hesitation, she agrees to enter.

At the film's inception Jude Law plays a young man named W. P. Inman at a provincial North Carolina town. He meets Ada (Nicole Kidman) and is at the fledgling stages of a relationship with her when he marches off to war as a Confederate soldier. The film opens early in the morning of July 30, 1864. Confederate troops are entrenched outside Petersburg during its siege. The teen-aged Oakley (Lucas Black) is handing out clothes from a wheelbarrow while Inman reads letters from Ada. The soldiers are tired and bored. Most are seasoned veterans who have been fighting for over three years. But meanwhile Union engineers are filling a mine under the Confederate trenches with gunpowder barrels while above, hundreds of Union troops are waiting to attack. Suddenly back at the Confederate siege works, a rabbit hops into the trench. Just as one of the men is about to capture it the ground rises from under him and there is a huge explosion. The Union lit the barrels and most of the trench exploded. As Inman and Oakley get up dazed from the blast, they see Union troops charging at them. As the Union charge, they run right into the crater where the trench used to be and are trapped in a kill zone. The Confederates fire down at them, but the fighting becomes hand to hand and Oakley is pulled down in by a Union soldier and Inman goes after him. Before Inman can reach him, Oakley is bayoneted but survives. Inman shoots the Union soldier with a LeMat revolver he finds and pulls Oakley out of the chaos. The battle ends with a decisive Confederate victory. As the Confederates are cleaning up after the battle, Inman comforts Oakley as he is pulled to the hospital on a cart. Later that day Oakley dies in the hospital with Inman and Stobrod Thewes (Brendan Gleeson) beside him. The next night, Inman, Swimmer (Jay Tavare) and his platoon are sent out to kill surviving Union troops trapped behind the lines. During the raid other Confederate troops open fire killing several Confederates and wounding Inman. While lying in the hospital he has letters read to him from Ada. Inman then decides to desert and go home to Cold Mountain. On his journey he meets the corrupt preacher Reverend Veasey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who is trying to kill his pregnant lover. After Inman dissuades him, he joins Inman on his journey. They help a young man named Junior (Giovanni Ribisi) butcher his cow and join him and his family for the feast. Junior leaves the house after the feast, and the women in Junior's family seduce Veasey, and Junior's wife, Lila, tries to seduce Inman. Junior returns home with the Confederate Home Guard and both Inman and Veasey are taken prisoner. While the home guard officers attempt to hide from a group of Union soldiers, Inman is able to escape with a wound. An old and wizened woman (Eileen Atkins) care for him and feeds him. He then meets a young widow named Sara (Natalie Portman) who is raising her infant child alone. After staying a night with her, three Union soldiers arrive demanding food. Sara rushes Inman away to avoid his being killed, but he hides only a few feet away from the house. Two of the soldiers harass Sara and leave her baby in the cold, though one (Cillian Murphy) attempts to keep the baby warm. The lead soldier attempts to sexually assault Sara but is killed along with the other soldier by Inman. The kindhearted soldier is shot by Sara. Parallel with Inman's adventures, the film follows Ada's wartime experiences. Ada is a city woman who only recently moved to the rural farm named Black Cove. She met Inman on her first day at Cold Mountain and had a brief romance with him the night before he left for the army. Shortly after Inman leaves, her minister father (Donald Sutherland) dies, leaving her alone on the farm and with little prospect for help, as the young, able-bodied men are off at war. She is completely inept at working the farm, having been raised to become a southern lady and is struggling to survive at the farm. She manages to survive thanks to the kindness of her neighbors, one of whom eventually sends Ruby Thewes (Renee Zellweger) to her. Ruby is a young woman who has lived a hard-scrabble life and is very adept at the tasks needed to run the farm. Ruby lives at the farm with Ada and together, they take the farm from a state of disaster to working order. During this time, Ada writes constant letters to Inman in hopes of meeting him again and renewing their romance. The two women form a close friendship and become each other's confidantes. They also are friends with the Swangers (James Gammon and Kathy Baker), who live down the road from Black Cove. It is at the Swangers' well that Ada "sees" a vision of Inman coming back to her in the snow along with a flock of crows. During the war, Ada and Ruby, and other members of their community, have several tense encounters with men who are members of the Home Guard. This branch of the Home Guard is led by Teague, whose grandfather once owned much of Cold Mountain. He and his deputies hunt deserters partially with the goal of Teague seizing their land. Teague also lusts after Ada. Although the purpose of the Home Guard was to protect the south and its citizen population from the North, they have become violent vigilantes who hunt and often kill deserters from the Confederate Army and terrorize citizens they believe are housing or helping the deserters, including the Swangers' sons, who by torturing their mother they coax out of hiding to be killed. Esco Swanger - the family patriarch - is also killed in protection of his sons. Ruby's estranged father Stobrod (Brendan Gleeson), also a Confederate deserter and a violin player, arrives and reconciles with her. He convinces her to make a coat for his intellectually devoid banjo player Pangle (Ethan Suplee). Ruby also finds herself drawn to mandolin player Georgia (Jack White). While camping, Stobrod, Pangle and Georgia are cornered by the Home Guardsmen led by Teague. Pangle unintentionally reveals the band as the deserters Teague is seeking. Georgia is hidden a few feet away and witnesses the shooting of Pangle and Stobrod. He informs Ruby and Ada, who rush to the campsite to find Pangle dead and Stobrod injured. They decide to stay at some cabins in the woods to avoid Teague and his men. It is at this moment that the two-story lines re-converge when Inman finally reaches Cold Mountain and is almost killed by Ada before she recognizes him. They later consummate their love and spend the night together. The Home Guardsmen, however, soon find the couple in the mountain and determine to kill Inman, as they know he's a deserter. While fighting off the hunters, Inman is shot by the young and violent Bosie (Charlie Hunnam) but manages to kill him as well. Ada goes to him and finds him just as she saw in the well earlier when he was coming back to her. He dies in her arms. The film ends several years later with Ada, Ruby and their families celebrating Easter. Ruby has married Georgia, and the two have an infant child. Her father Stobrod is revealed to have survived, and it is revealed that Ada's night with Inman had given her a child, Grace Inman.

Daphne Reynolds (Amanda Bynes) is a 17-year-old American girl, living with her wedding singer mother, Libby (Kelly Preston), above a restaurant in Chinatown, New York City. Libby had met Briton Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth) in Morocco, and they married in a Bedouin wedding ceremony of uncertain legality. They returned to his family estate in England. His father soon died, making Henry the Lord Dashwood. Alistair Payne (Jonathan Pryce), the family's aristocratic advisor, tricks Libby into leaving, telling her it is best for Henry's duties not to know she is pregnant, then he lies to Henry, hiding the pregnancy from him and saying that Libby claimed to be leaving because she was in love with someone else. Alistair orchestrated Henry and Libby's separation, because he viewed Libby as unsuitable to be a lady. Libby has always been honest with Daphne about who her father is, though Daphne feels a sense of emptiness without him. She always wanted to share a dance with her dad. When Daphne graduates from high school, she runs off to London to try and meet her father. Henry has disclaimed his seat in the House of Lords to run for election to the House of Commons, hoping to eventually become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Henry is being pushed by Alistair, acting as his political advisor. Henry is engaged to Alistair's daughter, the snobby Glynnis (Anna Chancellor), who has an equally snobby teenage daughter, Clarissa (Christina Cole). Checking into a London hostel, Daphne meets Ian Wallace (Oliver James), a local boy who works there to support his dream of making it as a musician. After forming a friendship when Ian shows Daphne around London, they start dating. When Henry catches Daphne at his estate, he is stunned to learn he has a child, but his mother, Jocelyne (Eileen Atkins), immediately welcomes her in, giving her a room at the estate. Jocelyne despises Alistair, Glynnis and Clarissa for their snobbishness and over-emphasis on social standing, preferring the more authentic and humble Daphne. After confirming things in a phone call with Libby, Henry embraces the opportunity to connect with Daphne. Daphne tries to win the acceptance of her father's social circle, but is repeatedly thwarted by Glynnis and Clarissa (Clarissa tricks Daphne into wearing a really casual dress for a really formal social function (attended by the royals), which was important for Henry). Daphne responds to the glitch by owning her outfit and even walking down the ramp with it. In addition, Daphne has to ward off the advances of Armistead Stewart (Ben Scholfield), a sleazy and arrogant upper-class boy whom Clarissa fancies and with whom Ian has long-standing rivalry. Daphne eventually pushes him into the Thames. Daphne inadvertently wins over the aristocracy, including the elderly Princess Charlotte (Sylvia Syms), whenever she interacts with them. Ian continues to pursue Daphne through this period and this makes Henry protectively jealous of her. However, Henry's political campaign suffers due to Daphne's flamboyant behavior (The country wonders if Henry cant handle his daughter, he cant be expected to handle an entire government), and his subsequent misbehavior with her. He asks her to assume the more dignified manner of the Dashwood lineage, after which Henry's polling numbers quickly improve. Ian is disappointed in her new behavior, made worse when she stands him up in favor of attending an upper-class social function. During her coming-out party, hosted by her father (who flies Libby over to attend), Daphne overhears Alistair telling Glynnis how he "got rid of" Libby 17 years earlier. When Daphne confronts him, Glynnis locks her in another room. Glynnis then asks Ian, the band's lead singer, to announce the father-daughter dance, knowing Henry will have to dance with Clarissa. Libby frees Daphne, but when they see Henry dancing with Clarissa, Daphne rejects her new self, telling Henry she is returning to the United States. Sometime later, Henry surprises everyone by announcing that he is withdrawing from the election. As he leaves the press conference, Henry discovers that Alistair knew about Libby's pregnancy and manipulated their separation. Henry punches Alistair in the face, then breaks off his engagement to Glynnis. Daphne is serving as a caterer at a wedding, where Libby is the singer. When the father-daughter dance begins, Henry shows up, telling Daphne that he loves her for who she is. Daphne embraces him, calling him "Dad" for the first time. Daphne finally gets the father-daughter dance she has been longing for her whole life. Henry informs Daphne that he has brought a large apology present for her-at which point Ian appears and asks her to dance. As Ian and Daphne dance, Henry apologizes to Libby, and the two also start dancing. In the epilogue, Glynnis marries a wealthy nobleman (who bores her to death), Clarissa marries Armistead (who still womanizes), and Alistair works on a London tour bus. Henry and Libby are legally married in a Bedouin ceremony. Daphne is accepted into Oxford and is dating Ian.

Will Randall (Jack Nicholson), an editor-in-chief of a large, New York City publishing house, is driving home to Manhattan from Vermont on a cold March night. The road is quite dark and icy and he hits a large wolf with his car. While he inspects the wolf's body and tries to drag it off the road, the uninjured wolf, playing dead, suddenly bites him and trots off. Will walks slowly back to his car, noticing that several other wolves are watching him in the woods nearby, their yellow eyes glowing in the dark. Will makes it back home to his penthouse and his wife, Charlotte. He ends up sleeping for some 20 hours, waking up only when Charlotte comes home in the evening. They have dinner together and Will becomes very passionate with her, to her sly delight. When he returns to his office, he notices that his sense of smell is greatly enhanced; he can smell tequila on a coworker's breath as he passes him and hear every conversation going on among the office's other employees. Will is also able to edit a manuscript quickly and without his glasses. Will's new boss, Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer), a rich tycoon who has bought the publishing house, throws a lavish dinner party at his Long Island estate. He tells Will that he's demoted as chief editor and his replacement will be Will's protégé, Stewart Swinton (James Spader). Raymond offers Will a job as editor in Easter Europe. While stalking away from the meeting with Raymond, Will gets too close to a few prized horses Raymond is showing and they become spooked. Will also feels pain in his chest like a heart attack and is forced to sit down near a guest house. While he recovers, he meets Alden's headstrong daughter Laura (Michelle Pfeiffer), who is polite but sullen and withdrawn. She comforts him with a glass of liquor and firmly rebuffs Will's advances. Will rejoins Charlotte and Stewart and genially congratulates the latter on his promotion. Stewart, feigning incredulity, claims he had no knowledge of Raymond's decision until right before the party. Will and Charlotte drive home, both seething over the turn of events. At home later, with Charlotte out of town for work, Will takes several deep sniffs of a robe. He becomes very agitated and goes to Stewart's apartment. Steward lets Will in the building, tries to grab him to talk to reason with him and Will bites him viciously on the arm. Will jumps up the grand staircase to Stewart's apartment with seemingly superhuman agility and finds Charlotte there. Will stalks off without another word, leaving his wife unharmed. Will checks into Manhattan's Mayflower Hotel. The next day he consults his secretary Mary (Eileen Atkins) and his assistant Roy (David Hyde Pierce) and plots to draw his and Roy's clients into a new firm with new investors, a move that Will hasn't backed up with a shred of truth, much to the admiration of Mary and Roy. Will drives out to Raymond's estate again to tell him he's turning down the position in Eastern Europe. While leaving, Will sees Laura again, riding a horse nearby. The horse is spooked when it sees Will and throws Laura off. Raymond suddenly appears and, upon finding out that Laura is unharmed, takes another opportunity to slag Will, saying that he doesn't approve of Laura getting involved with Will. She turns down her father's offer of lunch and takes Will back to the guest house she's staying in. The two talk over peanut butter and jelly and wander around the estate. Will tells her about his encounter with the wolf and how he believes he might be becoming one. He feels sick again and lays down in her house while she tends to him. During the night he wakes up, clearly showing characteristics of a wolf and bounds out, hunting down a deer and killing it. In the morning Will finds himself on the bank of a stream, with blood all over his face and hands. He leaves immediately and sees his doctor, who tells him he's fine. Laura, believing Will had left her cold, refuses to take Will's calls. Will visits Dr. Vijav Alezais (Om Puri), a professor specializing in the supernatural. Alezais tells him that the wolf that bit Will was not a true werewolf but a demon wolf that simply passes the spirit of an animal on to it's victims. He also suggests that this spirit can be transmitted to another person simply through passion and that not all wolf spirits are evil, they are manipulated by the nature of the individual. The professor gives Will an amulet to protect him from turning completely into a wolf. Alezais also asks Will to bite him, as Alezais does not have long to live, and would prefer "demonization to death." After refusing, Randall keeps the amulet so that he won't transform at the next full moon. Calling Laura to explain, Randall, now a wolf, breaks into the Central Park Zoo and steals handcuffs from a policeman (David Schwimmer) who tries to arrest him. In another area of the park, muggers want his wallet, but he attacks and leaves one of them alive. He wakes up in his hotel, with no memory of what happened. Will outmanoeuvres Raymond and Stewart with his threat of stealing the publishing house's biggest authors. He finagles a new contract that will let him stay editor-in-chief and grant him a larger salary and greater authority. Raymond also grants him the opportunity to fire Stewart. The two meet in the men's room and although Stewart begs Will for a second chance, Will still fires him, urinating on his shoes. While washing his hands, he finds fingers in his handkerchief and realizes he killed someone, at least one of the muggers in Central Park. Will's biting of Steward when he discovered his affair with Charlotte has consequences. Stewart attacks and kills Charlotte and sets about framing Will for the murder. Will, who believes he's become too dangerous, handcuffs himself to the radiator in his hotel room and waits for Laura to arrive. She frees him against his objections and Will finally puts on the amulet Alezais had given him. The two spend the night together, having sex. The next day they both hear about Charlotte's murder and Will insists Laura take him to her father's estate and lock him in the horse stables. Laura gets a call from a Detective (Richard Jenkins), the chief investigator of Charlotte's death. He tells her that canine DNA was found on Charlotte's body. Alarmed, Laura goes to the police station. There she runs into Stewart, who makes an animal-like pass at her. Laura hurries away, making arrangements for her and Will to leave the country. Stewart follows her, viciously kills the two security guards on the property and attacks Laura, trying to rape her in front of Will in the stables. Will tears off the amulet, succumbs to the full power of the wolf and escapes confinement, attacking Stewart. The two fight ferociously until Stewart is shot to death by Laura when he tries to stab Will with a pair of garden shears. Will and Laura stare at each other, Will is frightened to touch her due his monstrous state. She looks at him with a loving glance and takes his hand but he still runs off, hiding in the woods where he makes a final transformation. Later, Jenkins arrives. Laura shows heightened senses while talking to the detective and the police that accompanied him, telling the detective that she can smell vodka on his breath. The final scene is a close-up of her face fading into dark, lupine eyes, and a close up of Will completing his transformation into a full werewolf.

"The Dresser" opens with a performance of "Othello" at a regional theater in England during the last days of World War Two. In the title role is an ageing, once-famous Shakespearean actor identified to us only as "Sir" (Albert Finney). He is of the old. bombastic school of British acting, full of grand gestures and fine oratory. As the curtain comes down on the last act, and as the actors line up for their curtain call, Sir lectures them on the mistakes they've made during the performance, showing us that he is the leader of this traveling band of actors bringing Shakespeare to the provinces during wartime. Waiting backstage is Norman (Tom Courtenay), who has been Sir's dresser for decades. Norman is an efficient, somewhat effeminate little man who knows Sir's every whim and fancy, is used to his tirades and temperamental rants and is, for all intents and purposes, Sir's servant. As Norman waits for Sir to come offstage after a typically florid closing address to the audience, we see one way he copes with his job as he takes a nip from a handy little bottle of brandy always in his back pocket. Next we see the company hurrying to its next venue, a theater in the industrial town of Bradford where Sir is to give his renowned portrayal of King Lear. The train nearly leaves without them, as Sir makes his stately progress through the train station to the platform, Norman scurrying ahead to plead with the train guard the even the conductor to hold the train for Sir's arrival. But the train begins to pull out of the station, until Sir delivers a loud, commanding "STOP....THAT....TRAIN!" from the platform steps. The conductor, taken aback, does just that and Sir placidly leads his company aboard. Arriving in Bradford, however, we soon learn another source of Norman's anxiety, for it becomes obvious that Sir's mental capacities are rapidly fading. Norman rescues him from a confused, almost violent rant in the town square that lands Sir in the hospital. As the company tries to decide what to do, Sir unexpectedly arrives at the theater, disoriented and exhausted, saying he's checked himself out of the hospital. Norman ushers Sir theater's dressing room, fiercely resisting the stage manager's insistence that the show be canceled and insisting Sir will be ready to go on. The middle section of the film takes place nearly entirely in the dressing room, as Norman struggles to prepare Sir for the curtain. Sir's wandering mind and nearly incoherent ramblings gradually become more focused as Norman gets him to concentrate on applying his makeup, remembering his lines; and we see how dependent the two men are on each other. Sir would have no career left without Norman; Norman, even worse, would have no life without Sir, to whom he has so long dedicated all his time and energy. By the time Sir's wife, referred to only as "Her Ladyship" and who is playing Cordelia to her husband's Lear, arrives in the dressing room for the five-minute call, Sir is ready for the role we learn he has performed 227 times. The curtain rises for the opening dialogue among Lear's courtiers, but Sir seems to mentally drift away while waiting for his cue, much to Norman's distress, forcing the hapless actors on stage to improvise speeches while Norman struggles to convince Sir of his entrance. Air raid sirens sound, signaling the possibility of an airstrike; and, indeed, distant bombs that can be heard falling seem to rouse Sir and he strides on stage to deliver what all agree is his finest portrayal of Lear in his long career. After the triumphant performance, however, Sir collapses from exhaustion and Norman helps him to his dressing room to lie down. Sir requests Norman to read from an autobiography he claims to have been writing. Although all Sir has written is the opening dedication, Norman reads aloud Sir's gracious thank yous to his audiences, his fellow actors, to Shakespeare, to stage technicians...but not a word about his dresser who has served him so long and loyally. About to protest, Norman discovers that Sir has died while he's been reading. Norman, by now slightly drunk from the evening's brandy nips, flies into a rage, accusing Sir of being a thankless old sod, and in his anger even madly scribbles an addition to Sir's writing thanking himself. But Norman's anger only temporarily covers his disorientation at losing the only life he has known for so many years and, as Norman tearfully admits, the only man he has ever loved. The film closes with Norman sprawled across Sir's body, unwilling to let go of his life and his love.