Plenty (1985) review

Susan Traherne (Meryl Streep), an Englishwoman working with the French Resistance, has a brief fling with British spy Lazar (Sam Neill) and he bolts, the man thought to be her husband has a heart attack and dies, and then she meets ambassador Raymond Brock (Charles Dance) - after World War II ends and she's back in England, her best friend Alice (Tracey Ullman) moves in with her, she's in a "relationship" with Brock but wants to take a break and have a child with Mick (Sting) ... and once that fails, she winds up with Brock yet again but has gone fully bonkers (verbally lashing out, threatening suicide and literally scraping at the wallpaper with her nails).  Streep is fine as the lead, I suppose, but the script by David Hare - which was revamped from his stage play - turns her character into a petulant egotist (with a touch of borderline personality disorder) who cannot adjust to "everyday life" where adventure isn't around every corner (her and bestie Alice, who's attracted to married men, talk incessantly about having affairs), and "controlling spouse" Raymond is "chastised" for encouraging her to use barbiturates.  One could make the argument it tries to tackle more than it's capable of: it struggles to cover two decades and it feels like scenes are missing that would actually flesh out the gaps in time.  On the positive side, both John Gielgud and Ian McKellen are superb as government officials who are exhausted but resigned to the way history has unfolded - keep calm and carry on.