High Season movie synopsis. On the isle of Rhodes, Katherine, an expatriate English photographer, lives with her daughter. A young local wants to encourage tourism, so he commissions a sculpture of the Unknown Tourist for the town square; the sculptor he brings to Rhodes is Kate’s ex-husband.
Also there to see Kate is Sharp, an aging antiquarian and her dear friend. He has something important to tell her. As Kate, her ex, and Sharp sort out things that go back years, two English tourists bumble about, one thinking he’s fallen in love with Kate, his wife thinking she’s found her own lover. A rare vase, a spy, old friendships, the statue’s unveiling, and off-hand English sorting-out play into the resolution.
High Season is a 1987 British romantic comedy film directed by Clare Peploe. It is a comedy about tourism, set on the Greek island of Rhodes; vacationers from rich countries taking over the most spectacular scenery at the most desirable times of the year. There are nine principal characters, a mixture of English, Greek, and a Greek-American. It was written by director Clare Peploe with her brother Mark.
About the Story
Katherine (Jacqueline Bisset) is an English photographer who, with her husband Patrick (James Fox), came to live at a coastal town on Rhodes before the tourists discovered it. Their thirteen-year-old daughter Chloe (Ruby Baker) grew up there, and even though Kath and Patrick have separated, they have both stayed on. He supports himself through his sculpture pieces, which Kath despises, and she, by her photography books featuring antiquities and peasant life, which he finds fuddy-duddy.
Kath needs money; her latest book isn’t selling. She will be forced to give up her house and leave the island she loves unless she can find a buyer for a vase that was given to her many years earlier by a famous, now elderly art historian, Basil Sharp (Sebastian Shaw), who arrives for a visit. Katherine’s widowed friend Penelope (Irene Papas) regards the tourists as enemies, an army of occupation, and battles with her son Yanni, who appreciates the prosperity the tourists bring.
Rick (Kenneth Branagh), a practical-minded Englishman, fixes Kath’s toilet, and becomes smitten by Kath after she rewards him with a passionate kiss. His wife Carol (Lesley Manville) occupies herself with Byron’s poetry and the tourist-loving Yanni. The group is completed by Konstantinis (Robert Stephens), a wealthy Greek-American who wants to buy Kath’s vase, but needs it to be declared a fake so that he can take it out of Greece.
High Season (1988)
Directed by: Clare Peploe
Starring: Jacqueline Bisset, James Fox, Irene Papas, Sebastian Shaw, Kenneth Branagh, Lesley Manville, Geoffrey Rose, Paris Tselios, George Diakoyorgio
Screenplay by: Clare Peploe, Mark Peploe
Production Design by: Andrew McAlpine
Cinematography by: Chris Menges
Film Editing by: Gabriella Cristiani
Costume Design by: Louise Stjernsward
Art Direction by: Caroline Hanania, Petros Kapouralis
Music by: Jason Osborn
Distributed by: Hemdale
Release Date: June 7, 1988
Visits: 154
