The Hireling

England, just after the First World War. Lady Franklin has lost her husband and is only now coming out of a long collapse. Ledbetter, the chauffeur she hires, starts driving her out. They talk on the long journeys and she opens up to him. Ledbetter takes that closeness for something else. But the class between them has not moved an inch. Alan Bridges's British film is adapted from L. P. Hartley's 1957 novel. Robert Shaw and Sarah Miles take the leads. At Cannes in 1973 the film shared the Palme d'Or with Scarecrow, and Miles also took a special jury prize. The telling blames neither of them: the misunderstanding between them is the product of the order they live in, not of two people.