Matthew Turner | On 11, Dec 2024

Director: Stephen Soucy
Cast: James Ivory, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Vanessa Redgrave
Certificate: 12

Directed by Stephen Soucy, this is an insightful, fascinating and extremely entertaining documentary about the de facto “family” behind independent film production company Merchant Ivory – primarily director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, but also scriptwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and composer Richard Robbins. Giving equal depth to Merchant Ivory’s filmography and the personalities involved, it’s a terrifically entertaining watch and one of the best documentaries of the year.

Told through a series of talking head interviews, including multiple sessions with James Ivory himself, the film takes a satisfyingly chronological approach, beginning with the company’s early endeavours and Indian films like Shakespeare Wallah (1965), before progressing through the arthouse hits that made them globally famous, from A Room with a View in 1985 to the Oscar successes of The Remains of the Day (1993) and beyond.

The film provides remarkable insight as to the working on-set relationship between Ivory and Merchant. Most of the contributors provide stories to the effect that Ivory was always supremely calm and collected on set, with a strong eye for detail and a trust in his own casting decisions, leaving the actors to largely do their own thing. Emma Thompson laughingly reveals that one of the best pieces of direction she remembers was: “I was bored, do it again.”

By contrast, Merchant was more mercurial, often shouting on set, but exceptionally good at problem-solving. He also had a reputation for what might generously be termed wheeler-dealing, deferring payments for as long as possible and trying to squeeze every last drop out of whatever budget they had. Evidently, he drove many of his frequent collaborators crazy, and yet they always came back to work with him again – in one of several highlights, costume designer Jenny Bevan does a wonderful impression of Merchant, saying, “Jenny, Jenny, I got you your Oscar. Why do I now need to pay you?”

Though the film devotes significant screentime to four movies in particular (A Room with a View, Maurice, Howard’s End and The Remains of the Day), it nonetheless gives satisfying coverage to Merchant Ivory’s entire filmography, even films you might not have heard of, such as 2009’s The City of Your Final Destination. The latter is particularly remarkable, given the talent involved, and it’s hard to believe a new Merchant Ivory film with such a starry cast was so roundly ignored at the time.

Throughout the film, there are invaluable contributions from a wide variety of talking heads, many of whom are refreshingly candid, a testament to the trust established with the director – Ivory himself grows notably more comfortable over the course of their multiple interviews. High points include Hugh Grant, James Wilby and Rupert Graves talking about Maurice (an ahead-of-its time gay love story, made at a time when the Thatcher government and the AIDS crisis were proving devastating for LBGTQ+ communities), Vanessa Redgrave revealing how they stood up for her during a time of personal difficulty and Helena Bonham Carter musing on her personal and professional relationships.

Indeed, it’s the complex personal relationships within the company that make the film so fascinating. Merchant and Ivory were in both a romantic and a professional relationship together (an open secret at the time, but rarely talked about in the press or in public), but there was so much more to it than that – for one thing, Merchant, Ivory, Prawer Jhabvala and Robbins effectively lived together, and Merchant had an affair with Robbins, who in turn also had a thing with Helena Bonham Carter. Ivory also had an affair, with Bruce Chatwin, and yet he and Merchant remained a couple, and appear to have been the love of each other’s lives.

The film ultimately draws to a poignant conclusion, following the death of Merchant in 2005, but it ends on a heart-warming coda, noting that Ivory was the oldest person ever to win a screenwriting Oscar when he won for Call Me by Your Name, and revealing that he is very much still working, continuing to write scripts at the age of 95.

In short, this is a terrific film-making documentary, packed with fascinating insight, detail and analysis, but also full to the brim with passion and humanity. Needless to say, it will make you immediately want to rewatch the entire Merchant Ivory back catalogue, and even track down a copy of The City of Your Final Destination.

 

Merchant Ivory is available on Curzon Home Cinema.

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