Any Human Heart 2010

     This film is adapted from a novel published in 2002 by William Boyd.  The film extends from the 1920’s in Paris to 1950’s in New York, the 1980’s in London and as an elderly man in France of the 1990’s.  Logan Mountstuart attends Oxford and he wants to be a novelist.  His first novel is successful but his second is a flop.  He marries, has a son and starts traveling on assignments as a journalist to make money.  His marriage is a farce and he meets Freya Deverell, she has a daughter and is expecting another baby when they are killed during WWII in London.  He works at a NYC art gallery and has remarried to a woman with a daughter.  In his later years, he moves back to London to an apartment he bought after his mother passed away.

     PBS Masterpiece Classics originally broadcast this film.  Three different actors play Mountstuart in order to advance his age from a university student to an elderly man.  I liked this series except for the ending?  It was like a ‘boom’ done ending?  No warning, didn’t see it coming, unexpected?  3* (This movie is OK)

240 min, TV Movie, Drama, four episodes with Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen, Conor Nealon, Hayley Atwell, Sam Claflin, Ed Stoppard, Samuel West, Julian Ovenden, Ken Bones, Flaminia Cinque, Emerald Fennell, Gillian Anderson, Tom Hollander, Kim Cattrall, Holliday Grainger, Hugh Skinner.

Note:  Imdb 8.0 out of 10, 50% critic 100% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon 4.2* out of 5* with 465 reviews.

Special Note:  Mountstuart encounters Ernest Hemmingway, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Ian Fleming during his travels.  The author, William Boyd, wrote the screenplay.