The Life and Death of Peter Sellers Poster

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)

Biography | Drama 
Rayting:   6.9/10 14.5K votes
Country: USA | UK
Language: English
Release date: 20 January 2005

The feature adaptation of Roger Lewis' book about the actor best remembered as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies.

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sol- 30 May 2005

Geoffrey Rush does a great Peter Sellers impersonation, and Emily Watson shines as his wife, but otherwise the film is a little hard to recommend. The events all seem a bit fragmented, the frantic editing and camera-work subtract, and nothing much is gained by the over-exposure either. But the narration of the film is where I feel it really sinks, with awkward bits of talking to the audience and surreal sequences that appear like they have just been thrown in to make it more attractive to the eye. Also, viewers should be cautioned that the only thing that Stanley Tucci has in common with his character, Stanley Kubrick, is the same first name. Still, the film has some interesting elements, such as the insight into film-making and the performances, as well as some genuinely funny partsÂ… it is reasonably well made, but not brilliant.

stirlingwarrior 16 December 2004

Fmovies: Peter Sellers is without question one the greatest comical geniuses of not just the 20th Century, but of all time. Rush's portrayal of Sellers is brilliant, a man whose true self was as transparent of one his many character creations. For those seaking an "A&E Biography Channel" type film will be sorely disappointed as was I. I wasn't prepared for this alternative packaging of the material. I've seen it twice an am afraid it will be a third viewing before I am truly able to grasp it's full meaning. In as well crafted a movie can be, the camera work, set decoration, period computer enhancements to better reflect the era, all work together in producing a beautiful piece of cinematic eye candy. So much so that is takes away from the story to be told. If trying to show this tragic human bankruptcy, mortgaged in a quest for fame and fortune, then the producers did a fine job.

One doesn't know whether to love or hate Sellers. It's not hard to understand why those close to the man disapprove of this film's tone. In a mad-cap dash that gallops all over the globe, in and out of the arms of the world's most beautiful women, we see a man consumed with lust and how the condition can drive men obscenely crazy. For a unique look at the life of Peter Sellers, one can't go wrong by watching this movie.

snorkmaiden 7 May 2005

I am both a fan of the talents of Geoffrey Rush and of Peter Sellers, but I am afraid that I found this film extremely difficult to watch.

Firstly, the film depicts Sellers as a man without empathy, compassion, affection or indeed any humanity. Excepting perhaps the first moments of the film when he is looking after his baby daughter, he cares for no-one except himself. This may or may not be the case, but it means that ultimately you just don't care about him. You don't care that he ends up lonely and alone. Once I started to feel this about him, I just found it hard going.

Secondly, it was a bit too smarty pants for me, the way he kept merging into the characters of his family. I wondered what the point of that was, it just annoyed me.

Did Rush do a good job? It's a hard call. In the end I felt he was impersonating someone impersonating others. He couldn't capture the inner Sellers, because there was none. According to the film, at least.

In some ways, mainly this film disturbed me, because I do love Sellers' work and perhaps I don't want to think of him as an awful, empty, shallow shambles of a person.

rcraig62 16 June 2005

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers fmovies. It might be impossible to capture every aspect of a man's life in a two-hour film (A & E Biography frequently fails at this in the one-hour format with the bigger stars) while giving everything its proper weight. Peter Sellers' life is of such extraordinary dimensions that "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" even fails at being a scrapbook. This is not necessarily the film's fault; the movie is mostly well-cast (only John Lithgow as Blake Edwards didn't seem quite right) and beautiful to look at, from the opening credits on.

The movie serves mostly as a sampler of Sellers' oddball behavior. Incidents are selected from his life (or slightly fabricated) to stand for the whole; one slap across Britt Ekland's face is meant to represent a lifetime of spousal abuse, but those unfamiliar with Sellers personal life will assume that he was merely temperamental off-camera. In fact, it doesn't even come close to the truth: Anne Sellers reported that Peter once fought her for 14 hours straight (she took a nap in between) and Britt says Peter pointed a loaded gun at her in Rome, only capitulating after she told him 'if you shoot me, you'll ruin your own career'. His mistreatment of his family is grossly underweighted compared to such trivial items as Sellers not quite getting the Texas accent required for the bomber role in Dr. Strangelove, then faking a broken leg to Kubrick so he wouldn't be able to climb the ladder to the elevated cockpit on the movie set and avoid having to admit his failure with the voice. Other things are not clearly explained; for instance, that the "clairvoyant" Maurice Woodruff was in the employ of the movie studios to get Sellers to do the pictures they wanted him to do, or the fantasy sequence after his seven consecutive heart attacks in LA, which relates to Sellers insisting that he had an out-of-body experience during he time his heart stopped. The asides to the camera by the Kubrick and Bill Sellers characters, and Sellers (in funny voices) indicate the director straining for depth; perhaps a documentary on Sellers' life would have been better.

On the plus side, Geoffrey Rush is nothing short of superb as Sellers. Everything about Sellers seems exactly right, including the voice, which is no small feat, since I don't think Sellers is all that doable. The voice certainly wouldn't be recognized as Sellers if done out of context, say, as a stage impersonation, yet it works, even though I can't really recall what Sellers' actual voice did sound like. (It was this lack of personality that made him such a great instrument for creating characters) Charlize Theron is also a dead ringer for Britt, though she's not given much to do.

This movie is mostly for Peter Sellers enthusiasts, like myself, who can pick out the obscure trivia (like the Texas accent sequence), explain it to other people and feel superior. The movie isn't bad, really; its extremely well-acted and well-crafted, but it fails miserably at explaining the man. Why was he the way he was? How does one reconcile his genius with his brutality and selfishness. Sellers is of such depth and magnitude that a two-hour movie just doesn't cut it. For a true picture of the man, I would recommend the Roger Lewis book on which the movie is "based", Ed Sikov's more sympathetic biography on Sellers, and Michael Sellers' memoir "P.S. I Love You". Sellers once described himself as being an "empty vessel", a body th

ccthemovieman-1 20 March 2007

I didn't expect this biography to be so interesting but, then, I didn't know a lot about Peter Sellers' private life except for his marriage to Swedish beauty Britt Ekland. One thing that made this more interesting to me was that I grew up in Sellers' era in the '50s through '70s and was familiar with all his films.

Sellers obviously led a strange life or they wouldn't have made a movie about it. I expected what I got: a look at a great film comedian but also a disturbed person underneath the comic image, one that wasn't so funny. Modern films (those since the late '60s) seem to almost sadistically delight in showing a famous person's bad points, more than his or her good. Thus, for many people, this probably wasn't a pleasant film to watch. However, I didn't mind because I found Geoffrey Rush's acting so good, his portrayal of Sellers so credible and fascinating, that I could put up with some of the not-so-much fun to watch scenes. I don't think the latter was overemphasized, anyway.

Watching this film, I thought what a tragic figure was Sellers' mother "Peg," played memorably by Miriam Margolyes. This actress gets almost no billing because she's isn't well- known and that's a pity because she is very good in here. In fact, she's the second "star" of this film. After that comes Charlize Theron as the aforementioned Ekland, Emily Watson as Sellers' first wife "Anne;" John Lithgow as "Blake Edwards," Stanley Tucci as "Stanley Kubrick," and other fine actors.

All the actors were excellent but this is still Rush's film. He dominates almost every scene, reminding me of his first big hit, "Shine."

Overall, this is an interesting biography. Kudos to director Stephen Hopkins for a job well done, too.

jamesobrien 6 January 2005

The story begins with the Goons and ends just after his role in the movie, Being There, thirty years later. A lot of the film features recreations of famous moments in Seller's acting life, such as appearing on "The Goons" or in "The Pink Panther". There are some particularly hilarious insights into his development of the "Inspector Clouseau" character, including an explanation of why he ended up hating the character so much.

As such, it really only touches the surface of his life story, but it does give you an intense understanding of the character. A character which, in the style of Greek tragedy, had a major flaw. For me, the flaw was Seller's total lack of confidence, perhaps due to his appearance, which he appears constantly to have overcompensated for.

Curiously enough, since Sellers is shown portraying great emotions, I was never actually moved myself, except perhaps for the occasion when he is violent towards Britt Ekland and in a particularly galling moment with his children.

The movie reaches its crescendo with Sellers' performance in "Being There" in which it's suggested the reason why Sellers so wanted to play the man without a personality was because he, himself, had no personality.

A few people at my workplace commented they thought the movie was far too stylized. Although I can see their point, and I agree I was never really touched by the movie, I thought Geoffrey Rush's performance more than made up for this. Rush plays not only Sellers, but several other characters in a Sellers-like "Dr Strangelove" kind of way, and achieves all of it with gusto. I also really enjoyed the performance of Miriam Margoyles as Sellers' mother, Peg, with whom he seems to have enjoyed an intense, almost Oedipal relationship.

I thought Geoffrey Rush's performance was fantastic and makes the movie totally worth watching.

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