A Handful of Dust 2019

In this twist of fate set against a stately English country estate and a perilous jungle odyssey, Tony Last lives a quiet, orderly existence at Hetton Abbey with his wife, Brenda, and their eight-year-old son, John Andrew. Hetton is a Victorian neo-Gothic relic, admired by Tony as a family anchor, even as Brenda dismisses the house as ugly and uninteresting. Tony’s world is built on tradition, courtesy, and a strong sense of duty, and he remains blissfully unaware of Brenda’s growing boredom and John Andrew’s wayward impulses. The domestic rhythm is upended when Brenda pursues a dull, unremarkable man named John Beaver, initiating a discreet and ultimately devastating affair. The affair pulls Brenda into London society, where she develops a fondness for freedom and money, and she pressures Tony to finance a small flat, rented from Mrs. Beaver, John’s shrewd mother.

As Brenda’s scandal becomes known among their social circle, Tony remains quietly oblivious, while Brenda and her friends attempt, with social misdirection, to force him into taking a mistress of his own. The fragile triad of marriage, reputation, and desire begins to fracture, but Brenda’s longing for independence continues to grow. The life Brenda imagines—one that frees her from Hetton’s confining duties—collapses only when tragedy strikes in the form of John Andrew’s riding accident. The moment Tony learns that his son has died, Brenda calls the name John Beaver in her confusion, and her initial relief at hearing that “John is dead” gives way to a stark, involuntary reaction when she discovers the truth: the dead boy is her own son. The funeral marks not only a personal loss but a turning point in Brenda’s calculations about divorce and social reintegration.

After the funeral, Brenda directly asks for a divorce so she can marry Beaver, a demand that shatters Tony. He agrees, as a gesture intended to protect Brenda’s standing, and even offers an annual stipend to preserve her social life. Yet Brenda’s ambitions continue to push beyond what Tony is prepared to concede, aided by Beaver’s enticements for a larger settlement. When Tony learns of Brenda’s new demand—an amount that would force him to liquidate Hetton—his illusion of an easy, painless separation dissolves. A pivotal realization follows: by choosing divorce on Brenda’s terms, he would also relinquish everything he holds dear. He withdraws from the negotiations and announces a plan to travel for six months, hoping that distance might restore some balance.

The voyage of Tony Last becomes a voyage into uncharted terrain, both literal and emotional. In a chance encounter, he reconnects with Dr. Messinger, an explorer, and agrees to join a perilous expedition into the Amazon in search of a fabled lost city. On the outward leg, Tony shares a shipboard romance with Thérèse de Vitré, a young woman whose Catholic faith complicates their bond when he admits he is married. The Brazilian segment of the journey quickly unravels: Messinger proves an inept organizer; guides vanish into the jungle, and Tony and Messinger find themselves abandoned deep in the rainforest. Illness and exhaustion press in as they struggle to find a way out.

The pair press on through the jungle with dwindling hope. Messinger finally leaves in a rickety canoe in a vain attempt to summon help, only to be swept over a waterfall and killed. Left to their own devices, Tony drifts into delirium and is rescued by Mr. Todd, a British Guianan who presides over a small, autonomous family in a clearing in the jungle. Todd, a literary enthusiast who cherishes the works of Charles Dickens, asks Tony to read aloud, and Tony, grateful for companionship, obliges. The readings begin as a practical courtesy but gradually reveal a more unsettling undertone as Tony notices that the jungle settlement is less a refuge than a trap from which escape seems unlikely.

As Tony recovers, he seeks a way to leave, but Todd repeatedly questions his requests and delays the process. The atmosphere thickens with a sense of captivity as Tony realizes that his rescue may never come. A search party of Europeans approaches the jungle, and Todd cunningly sedates Tony to keep him hidden and passes along Tony’s wristwatch to the approaching rescuers, claiming that they would pay a reward for news of him. When Tony awakens, the bitter truth settles in: his escape seems impossible, and he is condemned to an existence tethered to a chair and the voice of Dickens.

Back in England, the social world Tony left behind accepts his “death,” and Hetton Abbey’s leadership moves on. His cousins inherit the estate and commission a memorial to his supposed life and death. Brenda, meanwhile, secures a new marriage with a friend of Tony’s, reshaping her own future in a way that underscores the social calculus at work in their lives. The film’s emotional arc shifts from intimate domestic disillusionment to a stark confrontation with captivity, dignity, and the limits of civilization against the uncaring vastness of the Amazon.

Throughout this narrative, the contrast between the refined veneer of English country society and the brutal, isolating reality of the jungle serves as the central tension. Tony’s unwavering commitment to his sense of honor and duty collides with Brenda’s desire for independence and security, exposing the fragility of appearances. The tale moves from familiar rooms and drawing rooms to the claustrophobic enclosure of a jungle settlement, where the most intimate acts—reading aloud to a captive man and the slow erosion of freedom—take on a new, unsettling gravity. The ending leaves Tony’s fate ambiguous in the eyes of those at Hetton, yet it is clear in his absence that a life built on prudence and propriety can be undone by a single, irrevocable turn of fate, and that the price of maintaining a polished surface can be the erasure of one’s own voice.