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The Servant

The Servant

Drama · 1963

An indolent aristocrat gets more than he bargained for when he hires a competent but silently devious manservant.

Movie details

The Servant

“A Terrifyingly Beautiful Motion Picture!”

1963 Drama 1h 56m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

7.6 / 10

Community rating

An indolent aristocrat gets more than he bargained for when he hires a competent but silently devious manservant.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over The Servant?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

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A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.

Sunset Boulevard

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A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

Eleanor the Great

Eleanor the Great

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94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein tries to rebuild her life after the death of her best friend. As a result, she moves back to New York City after living in Florida for decades.

Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine

Drama · 2013

After experiencing a traumatic misfortune, Jasmine French, a wealthy woman from New York, moves to San Francisco to live with her foster sister Ginger and the firm purpose of getting a new life, but she will be haunted by anxiety and memories of the past.

Julia

Julia

Drama · 1977

At the behest of an old and dear friend, playwright Lillian Hellman undertakes a dangerous mission to smuggle funds into Nazi Germany.

It's a Free World...

It's a Free World...

Drama · 2007

Working-class Angie, sacked from a recruitment agency for bad public behaviour, teams up with her flatmate to run a similar business from their kitchen. With immigrants desperate for work, the opportunities are considerable, particularly for two girls so in tune with these times.

The River

The River

Drama · 1984

Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life

Drama · 1995

Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?

FX's A Christmas Carol

FX's A Christmas Carol

Drama · 2019

London, 1843. Ebenezer Scrooge, a bitter old man, despises the Christmas holiday. Over the course of Christmas Eve night he is visited by three ghosts to show him his past, present and future.

Orlando

Orlando

Drama · 1992

England, 1600. Queen Elizabeth I promises Orlando, a young nobleman obsessed with poetry, that she will grant him land and fortune if he agrees to satisfy a very particular request.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Joseph Losey

Written by

Harold Pinter

Dirk Bogarde

Dirk Bogarde

Hugo Barrett

James Fox

James Fox

Tony

Sarah Miles

Sarah Miles

Vera

Wendy Craig

Wendy Craig

Susan Stewart

Catherine Lacey

Catherine Lacey

Lady Agatha Mounset

Richard Vernon

Richard Vernon

Lord Willie Mounset

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

People in Restaurant: Society Man

Court is in session

Put The Servant on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Ambition earns the room.”

The film reaches for consequence and scale, accepting the risk of seriousness instead of shrinking from it.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Importance has entered the chat.”

The production keeps announcing its significance, as though awards-season posture were proof of insight.