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f i l m We Think the World of You DESCRIBING its plot may create the mistaken impression that We Think the World of You (Cinecom) is just a kinky British love triangle about two men and a dog. It's that and more, directed with true Brit class consciousness by Colin Gregg from a novel by Joseph R. Ackerley, one of the first modern homosexual authors to break out of his closet. Alan Bates plays a gay middle-aged businessman named Frank whose lover (Gary, Oldman, roughing out one more vibrant character sketch in his gallery of rogues) is married, obviously bisexual and in jail for burglary While Johnny the housebreaker sweats it out behind bars, his beloved dog Evie, a rambunctious German shepherd, starts fur flying in a heated custody battle involving Johnny's wife, his old mum and stepdad and Frank, who ultimately becomes more obsessed with Evie than with her absent master. Bates eases into his role with grand English finesse, not quite concealing a smirk of superiority and noblesse oblige as he drops pound notes among Johnny's working class kin. Although the dog, as always, is a scene stealer, Evie (played by a bitch named Betsy) gets stiff competition from the company she keeps in this mordant domestic drama with a cutting edge of wounding humor. Bruce Williamson, Playboy, February 1989 © Playboy Enterprises THE CONSIDERABLE, not always cozy charms of postwar British comedy merge with the nervier pleasures of new English cinema in "We Think the World of You," Colin Gregg's shaggy-dog story of a man, the man he loves and the German shepherd that comes between them. With a screenplay by Hugh Stoddart, based on a semiautobiographical novel by J.R. Ackerley, the film has the fondness for literary sources and old-trouper actors so characteristic of traditional British film. The part of the story that deals with class conflict might just as well have been plotted at Ealing Studios; and even the sexual theme might have gotten past the censors in the old days, given a few judicious changes. In those times, the older, upper-class character, instead of being a literary type who likes young men, might have been a naval officer, concerned in a fatherly way with the cockney lad who had served under his command. That's how things were done in the 1950s - at least in films - which is one of the points that keep coming up in "We Think the World of You." Political Defiance The film not only recalls the manners of the 1950s but imitates the period's movies as well, from the grainy black and white of the opening sequence to Julian Jacobson's zingy score, heavy with woodwinds and xylophones. The mildness of tone is another pan of this impersonation - which, curiously enough, underscores what's new and aggressive in the film. The older man is not a fatherly naval officer. He is the young man's lover, with no explanations given or, for that matter, expected. One may regard this matter- of-fact attitude as artistic insouciance; but recent changes in British law have added to its meaning. In view of the statute forbidding the promotion of homosexuality (whatever that means), "We Think the World of You" reads like an act of political defiance - a genial but firm refusal to go back to the 1950s. Frank (Alan Bates) has achieved a modus vivendi with young Johnny and with Johnny's wife, Megan. (The latter are played by Gary Oldman, best known for "Prick Up Your Ears," and Frances Barber, the Rosie of "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid," who merely by their presence add a subtle, new-cinema dimension to their roles.) Frank is warmly protective with Johnny, icily polite with Megan and generally satisfied with things as they are. Then comes the rupture: Johnny is arrested on a burglary charge and put away for a year. To Frank, this turn of events seems not much worse than an inconvenience. He handles it by venturing into the slums once a month to visit Johnny's mother and stepfather, to drink tea, chat with urbane self-assurance and leave a few pounds in the jar on the mantel. Except for his jealousy at Megan's being allowed to visit Johnny in prison, Frank handles it all with equanimity until he meets the dog. Love and Class No, not a dog: a slobbering, fourlegged id; a chained brute, howling for freedom out of the depths of the slums; a misty-eyed innocent, abused and neglected; an ideally compliant lover, eager for Frank's every touch; a hairy, pointy-eared, mammalian sponge, ready to soak up every emotion in her vicinity. When Frank first sets eyes on her, Evie seems to be no more than a German shepherd. But by the end of the film, when we see her snuggling up with Frank before the fireside, brandy at hand and "La Traviata" on the gramophone, Evie has concentrated all the complexities of love and class into her sleek brown form. The film's younger generation of actors could hardly be more convincing. Oldman with a succession of unexplained but quite plausible cuts and bruises about his head, Barber with a blank-faced stare that seems the incarnation of workingclass passive resistance. The old troupers are a delight as well, with Liz Smith and Max Wall, as Johnny's flirtatious mother and dour stepfather, bringing lifetimes of character tics to their roles. Best of all is Alan Bates, who performs with remarkable aplomb, considering that he plays most of his scenes opposite not only a dog but also a couple of children who might have been cast by the ghost of W.C. Fields. Bates responds to this challenge much as Frank responds to the frustration and irrationality that surround him: with the frayed patience of a man who believes that he, perhaps alone in the world, is being reasonable. If you have been lucky enough to see Bates's impersonation of Guy Burgess in "An Englishman Abroad," you will know what order of pleasure to anticipate. Betsy, in the crucial role of Evie, proves to be a screen discovery with star potential. I only hope that filmmakers resist the obvious temptation and avoid casting her against Mike, who was terribly overrated in his last outing with Paul Mazursky. Stuart Klawans, The Nation, 2 January 1989, © The Nation Company Inc.   We Think the World of You (Roger Ebert review)

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