PLENTY

Plenty, released in 1985, provides yet another example of Meryl Streep’s incomparable ability to completely disappear into a role. In this film, she transforms into Susan Treherne, and Plenty follows Susan over a two-decade span beginning in 1943 during World War II in German-occupied France.

As the movie commences, Susan is a British courier, assisting the French military in their efforts to defeat the Nazis. She soon meets a fellow British agent, Lazar (Sam Neill) and she gives him tips on fitting in,  then offers him an invitation to her home which leads to a romantic one-night affair. It’s a night that Susan naively romanticizes into a sort of benchmark for all that will follow.

After the war, Susan is next seen in Brussels where, through an awkward circumstance, she finds herself meeting Raymond Brock (Charles Dance) a diplomat with the British Embassy. Susan eventually returns to London and works as a clerk in a shipping firm. Here she meets Alice (Tracey Ullman), a quirky, independent young woman who soon becomes her roommate and close friend. Susan begins dating Raymond, and their on-again-off-again relationship eventually turns to marriage after she spends some time recovering from a nervous breakdown. Raymond provides Susan with an affluent lifestyle and a life that has them living in numerous locations within the British territories. But all of this is never enough for Susan. Despite her numerous career advancements and opportunities, despite her idyllic life, and despite having good friends and a husband who adores and accepts all her flaws…. it’s never enough for Susan. And she makes sure that everyone knows her feelings and disappointments.

As a completely independent woman living in an era when independence, confidence, and being opinionated are not considered virtues for women, Susan feels trapped by the mediocrity of the existence she is expected to live. She wants a child and wants it on her terms before she settles for marriage. She deserves to be valued in the workplace. She wants to be fulfilled on her own terms… not on society’s. And while expecting all this, she battles with being mentally unbalanced. Today she might be diagnosed as bipolar. As she says, “Sometimes I like to lose control”. Streep plays Susan’s instabilities magnificently. She doesn’t portray Susan in a manic fashion. In fact, it really takes some time to see that Susan has any true mental instability at all. One could find her neurotic, or accept she feels driven to heighten the intensity of the mundane… never caring about the destruction she leaves in her wake.

Charles Dance is masterful as her long-suffering lover and future husband. Ralph’s love outweighs the pain Susan causes him. Tracey Ullman does the most she can with a role that is mostly one of providing conflict and an alternative perspective. Sting plays Mick, an acquaintance Susan originally selects to help her conceive a child, an arrangement that once again leaves only disappointment in the aftermath.

I’m surprised that Streep was not nominated for an Oscar for her performance. That said, Plenty ultimately falls victim to its own message…. what’s the point of it all?