Joe's Palace (2007)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Just perfect...

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

In "Joe's Palace", the power of Joe's actual palace appears to be supreme and irresistible.Entire lives have been defined for generations according to the social parameters, class distinctions, and boundaries exemplified by this magnificent home. The individual's inability to comprehend the extent to which this mansion exerts its power is the gist of the story.The house can be seen as a surrogate for religion or the monarchy, or the most worshipful possible love for England and its history. The building has a force of personality that cannot be resisted, and everyone whose path crosses it understands perfectly -- even Joe. Ultimately, the house is a monster that seizes control of those who enter. It rips them from themselves and then leaves them diminished or humiliated. Joe fares best, apparently because he sees the hold that the house exerts on people, but himself does not experience it.

I've seen the movie twice, some years back, and just recently 3/24/2016. Joe's ENTIRE character was not my favorite. I never liked the way he was so aloof about life. Very "meh," kind of depressed, had no friends, but then again...he kind of reminds you of the character Mr. Graham in that they are both so very alone, and socially awkward. Joe's character: He seems to not have much going for him, no friends, socially outcast, but when he gets his new job he seems to become more naive to the fact that he is all alone in a great big house.There is something about the mansion that captures you, even simply watching them go from priceless room to room you can see how easily this mansion can fill you with wonderment. Later you start to see a trend that everyone who comes in that house soon becomes changed.I think if you are just watching the film and not really vested into the background, and the characters, then you might easily not get the movie.

It's always a bit of a surprise to visit here after I've seen a wonderful movie. There are intelligent people that see it through eyes that are as valid as mine, yet they saw nothing as I did.I think it would be wise not to take too much from any of the reviews that you see here. If you are one of the lucky ones that see the film as I did, you will be rewarded by an experience that's as full as "Howard's End". If not, you'll likely know within the first 15 minutes and you can do something else.I thought the acting was as good as anything I've seen in the past couple of years. It wasn't just Gambon, it was pretty much across the board. Wynter was unbelievably good. Kelly Reilly was perfect.If you haven't read the spoilers yet, don't. This movie is subtle. Give it a try.

Michael Gambon is one of Britain's finest actors, and Stephen Poliakoff one of our more interesting dramatists; but rubbish is rubbish, and sadly, 'Joe's Palace' is not very good. Polliakoff has for a long time been interested in the aesthetics of aristocracy (and concordantly sympathetic to the beautiful), but in this film, he indulges these sentiments in the absence of any meaningful context. A reclusive billionaire does nothing with his life because he is consumed by what he fears his father might have done, although he apparently has no idea what this might have been; several historians fail to discover anything, but the girl from the local deli proves a better researcher than them and discovers that the father had been sympathetic to Nazi values; despite having always assumed that his Dad had been a Nazi collaborator anyway, this persuades the billionaire to think of suicide, although not very hard. Then he gives away a tiny proportion of his wealth (some things his father has stolen) and lives happily every after. Meanwhile, he employs a collection of social misfits (a familiar Poliakoff theme) to staff a huge London house he keeps empty; one of them, Joe, a young man with learning difficulties, is patronised by everyone telling him "what a bright boy" he is and watches silently everything that happens, commenting innanely in his diary but somehow becoming everyone's confident. A slick politician (played by Rupert Penry-Jones, who invests his lines with exaggerated faux-earnestness) and his beautiful mistress (plated by Kelly Reily, who emotes breathlessly but is also unconvincing), also feature for little apparent reason. Meanwhile, everywhere is empty: not just the house, but the streets and parks of London; in every scene, the background is blank, so the Polliakoff can maintain his trademark atmospherics, although you'll never see real life looking like this. The film as whole, meanwhile, is self-important but no less empty, devoid of real meaning and life, with no real dialogue (a scattering of monologues substitute for it) and, criminally for a film starring Gambon, desperately dull.