MERCHANT IVORY - Mark Reviews Movies

Merchant Ivory, Cohen Media Group

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 29, 2024

There's some interesting trivia to learn or be reminded of while watching Merchant Ivory, director Stephen Soucy's documentary about the eponymous film production company. Some of it has to do with how Merchant Ivory Productions got the work of their early and middle-period films done. They may have had notable casts, including the likes of Helena Bonham Carter and Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, but those well-known actors got their starts with the independent movies of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant. The two, along with screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, made names of those actors, while also making vibrant period dramas on a relatively shoestring budget.

Interviews with those three and several other collaborators in front of and behind the camera make up a significant portion of Soucy's documentary, which is most notable, perhaps, for having access to Ivory, the sole surviving member of the company's key trio. The filmmaker is currently 96 years old and still working, primarily as a writer since the ostensible end of the company he co-founded with Merchant after his death in 2005. Indeed, Ivory wrote the screenplay for 2017's Call Me by Your Name, which earned him much acclaim and several awards, and he doesn't seem ready to stop, either.

Ivory is American, a native of California and now living in New York City, and Merchant was born in Mumbai. The two met while the latter was a college student in New York, and they clicked almost instantly over movies, going on to make more than 40 of their own under the Merchant Ivory banner.

Additionally, the two had a romantic partnership that lasted from soon after their meeting until Merchant's death. That part of the story might not be known as well, because they grew up and worked in a different time, when such a relationship might have caused familial problems and other issues. Everyone who knew and/or worked with the pair knew about their personal relationship, but it wasn't something that anyone, including and especially Ivory and Merchant, discussed publicly.

It's a different time now, of course, and it's fascinating to watch Soucy question Ivory about his sexuality, his relationship with Merchant, and what it was like being a gay man during such a period in history. It's intriguing, not because Merchant speaks openly and freely about any of that, but because he stays quite on the issue.

There's an odd tension in some of these interviews. One imagines it's not because Ivory feels anything negative about his personal life. Indeed, he says exactly that, and as quoted in the documentary, a passage from his memoir seems quite honest about those topics. Something's off here.

That feeling shows up in other parts of this movie, particularly when Soucy starts digging into behind-the-scenes elements of the company, the subjects' lives, and other things. There's an especially odd moment in which Soucy offers some outtakes from an interview he does with actress Vanessa Redgrave, who starred in the company's 1984 film The Bostonians and also had a role in 1992's Howards End.

Some disagreement emerges about Redgrave's casting in the earlier movie, and when the idea that she might have been difficult to work with comes up, Soucy returns to some contentious debate about his questioning of the actor. He frames it as confirmation, but what does it actually achieve in the bigger picture?

We get a sense that Soucy might not fully know what he wants to do with this documentary, which isn't too much of an issue when the subject—particularly for those who enjoy some number of the Merchant Ivory films or are interested in film history—and the information at hand, no matter how unorganized, are worthwhile. It's still an issue, though, when Ivory, the movie's primary source of that information, is so frank about some things and so hesitant about others.

One wishes Soucy had taken the hint—or, in the case of Redgrave, the direct advice—and stayed on course with his inquiries. There's plenty of drama without going into some of the personal or more troublesome backstage details that he seems set on approaching.

It's amusing, for example, to learn about Merchant's producing practices, which basically amounted to starting a project, hoping the money would come through, and trying to charm his way through any criticisms from his cast and crew when they couldn't be paid. Thompson and others compare the bond on a Merchant Ivory set to that of a family—a dysfunctional one, to be sure, but one that supported each other because they knew the problems were worth the effort.

This essentially becomes a series of anecdotes, as well as facts about awards and box office and later partnerships with big studios, but it's obvious the participants have real love for the team, despite those business issues, and the films that resulted. We get some sense of Ivory's hands-off, trusting, and collaborative directorial style from the actors, too, and if Jhabvala's role seems overshadowed by the sheer amount of information communicated by the documentary, it does acknowledge her as an essential part of the team on occasion.

Still, Merchant Ivory too often comes across as a highlight reel. It may possess some valuable stories, but there's a foundational uncertainty in its structure (The chronology is all over the place at times) and, beyond the basics, its ultimate goal.

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