Under the Volcano

Under the Volcano (1984) starring Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Andrews. Directed by John Huston. Former diplomat Geoffrey Firmin (Finney) is a raging alcoholic, living in Mexico just before World War II, whose wife Yvonne (Bisset) has just returned after divorcing him. She begs to be his wife again, but he chooses the bottle over her. That's an oversimplification, of course, but that's the skeleton of the plot. The movie is beautifully conceived and photographed, and although it doesn't have a happy ending, the ending seems inevitable in hindsight. (The subtitles are very hard to find -- you can only access them through the remote -- and there are no closed captions.) Grade: B+