Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Sameeha Pugh It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Martin Bradley It may be regarded as minor Losey but it's by no means dismissable and is set once again amongst the Upper Crust and the Hoi Polloi. "The Romantic Englishwoman" of the title is Glenda Jackson, (superb as always), married to novelist Michael Caine, (not at his best here). She's bored by the life she is leading which is no life at all really and he's got writer's block and has turned to writing for the cinema. It begins in Baden Baden where she's gone 'to find herself' and where she meets cocaine smuggling gigolo Helmut Berger, (much too prissy to be a convincing love interest). When she returns to England Berger follows her, landing on her doorstep where Caine welcomes him with open arms planning to make him a character in the film he is writing.It was adapted by Thomas Wiseman and Tom Stoppard from a novel by Wiseman and there is nice streak of dark, and at times very funny, humour running through it though you would be hard pressed to call it a comedy. It wasn't well received when it came out and hasn't been much seen since. Ultimately it's Glenda's film reminding us just how good an actress she could be in a well-written role, here making mincemeat of her co-stars.

HotToastyRag In the extremely strange and uninteresting The Romantic Englishwoman, a husband's suspicion of his wife's infidelity practically pushes her into doing it. The outline of the plot could have been turned into a comedy, but Tom Stoppard and Thomas Wiseman's script is a drama. As a result, there's really nothing and nobody in the film to really care about.Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson are the married couple, and every time she's out of his sight, he imagines that she's with another man—even though when they are together they can't keep their hands off each other and only get in small squabbles instead of real fights. Then, Helmut Berger appears, and even though he's a virtual stranger to Glenda, Michael can't help but practically push them together so that he can prove himself right. It's extremely silly, but not in a comical way. Unless you're a die-hard fan of Glenda Jackson and want to see her whip her clothes off in several scenes, I can't imagine anyone wanting to sit through this movie. The acting feels uninspired, the plot is beyond frustrating, and the characters are impossible to root for. Plus, Glenda Jackson always seems too angry to be likable.

James Hitchcock Spa towns seem to have an odd effect on film-makers. Alain Resnais' "Last year in Marienbad", set in the Czech spa town of that name, has a reputation for being bafflingly obscure, so much so that it won itself a place in Michael and Harry Medved's "Fifty Worst Films of All Time". And then there is Joseph Losey's "The Romantic Englishwoman", part of which is set in the German spa town of Baden Baden.The plot concerns Elizabeth, the "romantic Englishwoman" of the title and the wife of a well-known novelist. While staying in Baden Baden Elizabeth has an affair with a young German named Thomas. Or does she? Is it possible that this "affair" was simply a fantasy on her part? Or does it only exist in the mind of her jealous husband Lewis? Thomas, an admirer of Lewis' work, later comes to stay with Lewis and Elizabeth at their home in England, where Lewis makes him surprisingly welcome for a man who is (or whom he believes to be) his wife's lover. There is also a sub-plot about Thomas' criminal associates, led by a man named Swan, who are pursuing him across Europe, but the exact details remain vague.There is an adage that one should never judge a book by its cover, and the cinematic equivalent would probably be "don't judge a film by the big names in its title sequence". Even if you have admired the other work of those names. Michael Caine (now Sir Michael) is one of the cinema's greatest stars, appearing in some of the best British films of the sixties, seventies and eighties such as "Alfie", "Get Carter" and "Educating Rita". Glenda Jackson is today best known as a Labour politician, but was a fine actress in her youth. Scriptwriter Tom Stoppard is perhaps Britain's greatest living playwright. Losey was best known to me as the director of "The Go-Between", one of the major British films of the early seventies and one of the films which started the "heritage cinema" movement.Unfortunately, all this assembled talent does not make for a good film. "The Romantic Englishwoman" goes to show that baffling obscurity was not a monopoly of the Nouvelle Vague and that British art-house film-makers could be just as infuriatingly obscure as their French counterparts. (Losey was American by birth, but I count him as an honorary Briton. He was forced to leave Hollywood during the McCarthy era because of his left-wing sympathies and thereafter worked mostly in Britain). I would not quite count this among my all-time fifty worst films, but it is nevertheless a dull and confusing one which not only lacks a clear storyline but also lacks any perceptible point. There are some films where ambiguity can be a positive virtue rather than a fault, but this is not one of them. 4/10

marieinkpen Is this the worst film ever made (not including Michael Winner's re-make of The Big Sleep which was almost a spoof)? It starts beautifully with Glenda Jackson looking out of a train window over Germany set to lovely music and then it's all downhill from here on in. Glenda Jackson looks stunningly beautiful but Wardrobe obviously had no idea how to dress her in anything that actually suited her, Michael Caine is rubbish as a jealous husband, no subtlety at all & even unsubtle characters require a certain subtlety of acting. He is wholly miscast as an intellectual & a creative type.Occasional flashes of style but the "plot" is muddled & aimless, the script poor, the direction & editing are an utter mess. The whole thing is very 1970s & very difficult to watch without cringing. What an utter waste of time. A hundred minutes of my life that I'll never get back.