Judi Dench’s strength as an actor lies in the believability of the characters she portrays. She plays a part with such conviction that, whether the character is inherently likeable or not, you care about her and want to know her fate. In smaller roles where Dench’s screen time is more limited, her characters carry the overall narrative forward, even if she’s merely mentioned in passing, making her always memorable.
Our first look at Dench’s character – romance author Miss Eleanor Lavish – in James Ivory’s 1985 period drama A Room with a View is around the dinner table at a guest house in Florence. She has command of the conversation, discussing the topic of travel among a group of fellow lodgers and tourists. She comes off as a bit of a brazen swashbuckler, who’s travelled many places solo (an anomaly for women at that time) seeking inspiration for her next novel.
Dench is the embodiment of free spiritedness in this role. Observational and fastidious to the highest degree, Lavish is a character that truly savors life, from stopping to exult old statues, or sitting in a field to drink in the scenery. She takes much delight in finding romance in the smallest of details. This makes for some comical moments, such as when she enthusiastically inhales the city air and encourages her walking companion Charlotte Bartlett (played by Dench’s dear offscreen friend Dame Maggie Smith) to do the same who, in turn, does so and stifles a retch.
It’s easy to trace Dench’s path to the icon status she holds today. She had a long and storied career in the theatre in the sixties and seventies, performing a host of roles including (a lot of) Shakespeare and Sally Bowles in Cabaret. She had her first bit parts in films The Third Secret in 1964 and Four in the Morning in 1965, and made many TV show appearances before starring alongside her husband Michael Williams in the sitcom A Fine Romance, which ran from 1981 to 1984.
In Charles Sturridge’s 1988 film A Handful of Dust, Dench plays a mother to a home wrecking son. Like A Room with a View, A Handful of Dust is also based on a novel, but this time set in the early 1930s. As Mrs. Beaver, Dench is a stylish social climbing businesswoman. A bit of a busybody, Mrs. Beaver likes to organize things, from arranging for a flat rental to erecting a memorial for people she’s not particularly close with, though she claims to be. She lives well enough, but she does have to work, and it’s evident that she’d love to change her situation.
Mrs. Beaver appears generous and cheerful and dotes on her son, almost to a creepy degree. But she’s also cunning, ruthlessly shrewd, and practical. From the outset, she has her sights set on her son marrying a soon-to-be divorcée he’s been having an affair with, hoping that with some prodding she’ll coax her to demand a substantial alimony of £2000 a year instead of the more modest £500 her husband has offered. As soon as it’s clear this would-be daughter-in-law will not be flush in her settlement, Mrs. Beaver and her son lose interest and take off for America.
While Dench’s performances are always fun to watch, it’s her fluid adaptability that draws audiences to her films; and with every sort of character under her belt, Dench cannot be typecast. She delivers perfectly imperfect human qualities to her performances which make them believable, and can be as condescending and manipulative as she can be nurturing and fearless.
A completely different role saw Dench in David Jones’ 1987 feature 84 Charing Cross Road as the Irish Nora Doel, wife to Anthony Hopkins’ Frank Doel. Based on writer Helene Hanff’s epistolary memoir, this film tells the story of Hanff’s nearly 20-year correspondence with head buyer Frank for Marks & Co, an antiquarian bookshop in London, from 1949 to 1968. Nora is Frank’s second wife, after his first passed during the war.
Throughout the film, we get little glimpses into their marriage, watching Nora’s meals grow more ornate the more practiced she becomes, seeing the pair impulsively join a conga line on a date, and looking on as they decorate for Christmas or repaint the living room. While she’s not quick to smile, when she does you can tell it’s not for show. She takes great pride in her family, who are her world.
At the end of the film, Nora writes to Helene (Anne Bancroft) about the death of Frank, and her loss is palpable. In a grey sweater with her hair pulled back, crestfallen and worn out from grief, she writes “I miss him so, life was so interesting, he always explaining, and trying to teach me something of books.”
Dench’s film career really blossomed in the mid-nineties, with culturally iconic roles such as the laser-focused and exacting MI6 head M, starting with 1995’s GoldenEye, whom she would play in eight Bond films until her departure in 2012’s Skyfall, with a cameo in 2015’s Spectre. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth I in 1998’s Shakespeare in Love and suddenly she was everywhere, with some of her most memorable characters yet to come.
Published 9 Dec 2024
By Carly Mattox
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