Mrs. Henderson Presents

Mrs. Henderson Presents is an innocuous and oh-so-British comedy that’s clearly been designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible (this is precisely the sort of film that Miramax – now The Weinstein Company – trots out around Christmastime). As a result, while it’s essentially entertaining throughout (though it does go on a bit longer than necessary), the film just never becomes terribly compelling. Judi Dench stars as the titular Mrs. Henderson, a widow who decides to purchase a rundown theater house. She hires the crusty, curmudgeonly Vivian van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to run it, and it’s not long before the theater is running round-the-clock nude revues (a first for London). Mrs. Henderson Presents has been directed by Stephen Frears, who imbues the movie with a light-hearted touch – even through some of the story’s darker moments. Dench delivers exactly the sort of performance that one might expect from her, and admittedly does a nice job of stepping into the shoes of this comedically out-of-touch snob (she refers to the homeless as “delightful creatures”). Hoskins is clearly the most effective aspect of the film, stealing scenes to such an extent that we begin to miss him when he’s offscreen (which is, unfortunately, more and more frequent towards the end). But at a certain point, Mrs. Henderson Presents can’t help but feel like Oscar bait (there are even two separate sequences in which both Dench and Hoskins are allowed to deliver rousing speeches, with Dench literally standing atop a soapbox during hers) – ensuring that viewers who dug fluff like Chocolat and Shakespeare in Love (both of which, not-so-coincidentally, featured Dench) will undoubtedly have a ball with Mrs. Henderson Presents.

** out of ****