Ties that bind

Susan Sarandon plays a female tobacco tycoon with a weakness for her butler

Romeo and Juliet. Tristan and Isolde. Bernard and Doris. Which of these couples is not like the others?
It depends on whom you ask. The new film Bernard and Doris is an imaginary spin through the relationship between the tobacco heiress Doris Duke and her much younger butler, Bernard Lafferty, whom she left in control of 1 billion when she died at 80 in 1993. He was in his 40s.

Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes star in this version of a relationship that in real life spawned lawsuits, an avalanche of books and nasty tabloid headlines.
8220;The question is intimacy,8221; Sarandon said. 8220;For me, anytime anyone decides to be intimate with another human being and decides to let them in8212;and these two people definitely were there as witnesses to each other8217;s lives8212;ultimately I find that an incredibly courageous act, regardless of the gender, the age, whatever, whether it8217;s sexual or not.8221;

Sarandon, 61, has been with her partner, actor Tim Robbins, for 20 years and says she knows a thing or two about relationships. 8220;Really, what you need is forgiveness. 8220;Forgiveness is acceptance when your ego gets involved, and you want to walk out the door.8221;
Bernard and Doris was intriguing, Sarandon said. The script was given to her by the film8217;s director, her friend Bob Balaban, who also produced Gosford Park. 8220;Everyone wanted to be there because they wanted to watch Susan and Ralph acting,8221; Balaban said.

Sarandon, a native New Yorker who says she just fell into acting, hit the stratosphere in the 1970s in the cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show and kept zooming, picking up a best actress Oscar in 1996 for Dead Man Walking and Oscar nominations for her roles in Atlantic City, Thelma 038; Louise, Lorenzo8217;s Oil and The Client.
In Bernard and Doris, Doris Duke travels the globe and flips through social invitations to the White House between bedding young studs, getting drunk and managing her philanthropic affairs with considerable aplomb. 8220;She8217;s horrible sometimes,8221; Sarandon said. 8220;It was fun playing her.8221; But Doris is also twice divorced and buried a child. She tells Bernard how one husband asked how much his allowance would be, minutes before consummating the marriage.

Bernard rejects Doris8217; advances by explaining that he is gay. Often disappointed in love, he is an alcoholic as well, and Doris sends him to dry out. He returns, and resumes running the household and helping her dress. When Doris falls ill, he plays nurse. Did he do it for the money? For love? Was he somehow involved in her death?
The film asks but never answers the questions. Sarandon gives it a perspective: 8220;When you have that much money and that much power, you can indulge your eccentricities,8221; she said of her character. 8220;She wasn8217;t socialised in a normal way, and she meets this other damaged person who is also outside society and has similar weaknesses.8221;

8220;I think the way that Ralph chose to play that man, whether he was that way or not, was very dignified and very sweet,8221; Sarandon added.
Sarandon says a lot of her considerable energy these days is devoted to being a mother to her three children. She says she still enjoys mothering, on screen and off. 8220;I8217;ve done a myriad of mothers8212;good ones, bad ones, responsible ones, prostitute ones8212;and I8217;m never tired of that,8221; she said. 8220;The whole idea that once you play a mother, your career is over, your sexuality is over, that8217;s so passe. 8220;If I8217;ve been in some way able to establish that, that8217;s great.8221;
-FELICIA R. LEE, NYT