In WW2, Englishwoman Susan Traherne (Meryl Streep) is one of the few to work as a courier for Special Operations in occupied France. She is fearful of discovery, but during a fling with a British agent (Sam Neill) she is able to forget the dangers until he is suddenly called away. Long after the war she keeps trinkets as a constant reminder of him, but her life no longer has purpose. Deciding that career diplomat Raymond Brock (Charles Dance) is not the man for her, she looks to working class Mick (Sting) to provide her with the child she desperately wants. When those efforts fail she returns to Raymond, but as patient as he is with his difficult wife, he is not the solution to her malaise.

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For those whom I am about to offend (with my personal definition of an idiot), I do not apologise. An idiot is anyone who thinks that Meryl Streep, the world’s Most Awarded actress, “can’t act.” I’ve heard people say it. These are the same people who think that the sun shines out of Vin Diesel’s dual exhaust…but still they say it. Plenty would be pretty empty without her. I have not witnessed Kate Nelligan’s critically acclaimed performance in the David Hare play, which he adapted for the screen, but it cannot exceed perfection.

Meryl Streep, after all, learned the part in the English accent of the middle classes and it is absolutely flawless, as is her French and the Aussie strine she lapses into in a key scene. She wasn’t Oscar nominated, which was ludicrous in a not very significant year and perhaps the reasons were that she had already won two Oscars by then (and 13 nominations now) and that Susan Traherne was not the kind of woman one could warm to.

In Susan’s troubled mind, her best days were behind her, surviving on her wits in occupied France, and in conservative Britain after the war nothing could match the drama and excitement of her undercover work for the Resistance. With smooth, suave Raymond Brock (Charles Dance) she tries to find stimulation in a bohemian lifestyle, but nights in dingy jazz clubs and bars are not for them, though she does meet an impish friend, Alice Park (Tracey Ullman), who remains loyal and true, that Raymond never approves of. Unsettled in her work and unhappy in her life, Susan makes it clear that all she wants from simple, working class Mick (Sting) is a child and when even their efforts fail, her frustration bends to breaking point. When the chips are down, it is Raymond who rescues her from herself, but the dreary life of a diplomat’s wife, nights playing Scrabble in Jordan, only saps her remaining spirit and her behaviour becomes increasingly irrational and neurotic.

When Hare’s play was first performed in 1978, it was postulated as an allegory of Britain in post-war decline but Hare rewrote 60 percent of it and Schepisi helps change the emphasis to ponder the anatomy of a stifled and unfulfilled life. Dismissed for the most part by critics and the public, Plenty has no plot and is too plodding for popular taste. Schepisi’s to and fro structure confuses time and place and some scenes are held for too long. But those who become absorbed in the plight of this intelligent but insecure woman will see something electrifying.

Observe the scene, in the midst of the Suez Canal crisis, when Raymond has visiting Burmese dignitaries to dinner and invites his imperious Foreign Service boss Sir Leonard Darwin (Sir John Gielgud: “who on earth is that appalling wog?”) to join them. Streep makes a stunning entrance. At first it seems she will be on her best behaviour. “The words Suez Canal will not be spoken…banned! No one will mention Nasser’s name! No-one will say blunder, or folly or fiasco! Nobody will say international laughing stock! You are among friends, Leonard.” We know her range is extraordinary but try subtlety, to stridency, to sheer flagrancy in this riveting one minute cameo and you have seen pure genius at work. This is why we feel sadness for Susan even when she is most selfish, malicious and maddening. She is heart and headstrong enough to try and redeem herself when she visits Sir Andrew Charleson (Ian McKellen) to plead for her husband’s career and there’s that magnificent moment when, facing rebuff, she fights back with “I must, however, warn you of my plan….” Patience, you see, reaps plenty.

TITLE: PLENTY: DVD

RATING: (M)

ORIGIN: (US / UK, 1985)

FOREIGN TITLE:

SECTION: DVD

CAST: Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, John Gielgud, Ian McKellan, Sting, Tracey Ullman

DIRECTOR: Fred Schepisi

PRESENTATION: Widescreen. Stereo.

SPECIAL FEATURES: none

DVD DISTRIBUTOR: Universal

DVD RELEASE: August 4, 2004