James Ivory · 1993 · road

James Ivory's 1993 film of the Ishiguro novel. An English butler takes a few days' motoring holiday in the West Country to call on a former housekeeper, and spends the drive remembering the years he served a master who was courting the wrong people. The trip is a small one and the reckoning at the end of it is not.

1. 1
   Darlington Hall

   Stevens has served the house all his working life, through the years his employer was hosting appeasers and receiving Ribbentrop - and has never once permitted himself an opinion, which is the whole of his tragedy.

2. 2
   Salisbury

   Driving west in his new employer's Daimler, he stops at Salisbury and is taken for a gentleman by villagers who assume anyone with that car and that manner must be somebody - a mistake he does nothing at all to correct.

3. 3
   Taunton

   Further west, the memories keep arriving out of order: his father dying upstairs while he served dinner, and Miss Kenton at the door of his pantry asking what book he is reading and being refused an answer.

4. 4
   Weymouth

   On the pier at Weymouth he meets her at last, learns she is not coming back, and watches the lights come on - and then drives home to a house with a new owner and resolves to work on his bantering.