A Delicate Balance

Agnes and Tobias, living in a finely appointed house in Connecticut, have grown used to the flawed and fragile state of their marriage. They carry the grief of their son’s death quietly and manage well enough. Agnes’s sister, given to drink, comes and goes; a couple of friends seized by fear move into an upstairs room. When their daughter Julia turns up to announce her fourth divorce, everything suppressed for years rises to the surface. The film was adapted from a play and keeps its theatrical construction: the house is never left, the scenes are held long. The account does not say who is right; it looks at how long courtesy can hold. Katharine Hepburn and Paul Scofield appear in Tony Richardson’s hundred and thirty three minute film, completed in 1973.