Robin and Marian

A film about the late part of the Robin Hood story. Robin comes back to England after twenty years. He had gone on crusade with Richard the Lionheart; the war is over, the king is dead, and the man who returns is old, tired and has lost most of his old skill. Nobody in Sherwood is waiting for him. Little John is with him; the others have scattered. Marian is in a convent; she has become an abbess and built her own life after Robin left. Their meeting is not a reunion but a reckoning. The Sheriff is still in office and has aged too. The enmity between them goes on, though neither quite knows any more why. What the film is interested in is not the legend but the man who has to live inside it: the townspeople expect from Robin the man in the old stories, and his trying to meet that expectation is what puts him in danger. Sean Connery plays Robin and Audrey Hepburn plays Marian. It was Hepburn's first film in nine years. Robert Shaw plays the Sheriff and Richard Harris plays Richard. It was shot in Spain. Richard Lester directed; he deliberately breaks the usual heroic narrative and builds the fights on exhaustion rather than skill. Who it is for: anyone who likes classical legends told through old age. Who it is not for: anyone expecting adventure; the film is sad and its ending is hard.