Summary

This hour-long installment of the PBS series Masterpiece Contemporary stars Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman, and constitutes an adaptation of Christopher Reid's narrative poem of the same title. Like its source material, the film follows the saga of a nameless book editor (Rickman), meeting his ex-girlfriend (Thompson) a decade and a half after their initial break-up. They join one another for a nostalgic lunch at a chic SoHo restaurant that figured prominently into their relationship; she has become the society wife of a French writer, and now resides in Paris; he, on the other hand, has failed as a belletrist, fell into a mundane, unsatisfying publishing job, and pines for the loss of the love affair. Day in and day out, it seems, he can't shake his feelings of resentment and hostility about aging. Though the reunion begins peacefully and amicably, it soon descends and degenerates into a vitriolic parade of insults and accusations. This marked the first reunion of Thompson and Rickman since their roles as husband and wife in the 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi