A Handful of Dust

Tony Last lives in the English countryside in a large house handed down through his family. His wife Brenda is bored. She starts meeting John Beaver, one of their visitors, in London. Beaver has no money, little enthusiasm, and does not even love her; she goes anyway. Then there is an accident, and when Brenda gets the news the first person she thinks of is Beaver. Tony refuses the divorce. To avoid selling the house he joins an expedition and goes to Brazil, into the Amazon. What happens to him there is worse than anything in England. Charles Sturridge directs; a hundred and eighteen minutes, adapted from Evelyn Waugh's novel of 1934, with James Wilby as Tony, Kristin Scott Thomas as Brenda, and Judi Dench and Alec Guinness in the cast. The novel's ending has been much discussed in literature.