I Served the King of England

Writer/director Jiri Menzel's ambitious filmic adaptation of Bohumil Hrabal's picaresque novel about a diminutive Czech waiter with dreams of becoming a millionaire and of owning his own hotel, is a rich black comedy steeped in wartime experience and sexual liberation during WWII. Jan Dite (brilliantly played by a Chaplinesque Ivan Barnev in Dite's younger incarnation) works his way up through the ranks of elegant hotel restaurants while enjoying a libertine existence. Politically oblivious to the Nazi invasion, Jan becomes infatuated with a German girl named Liza (Julia Jentsch) who refuses to marry him until he proves some German ancestry. Jan’s bittersweet date with success comes at the expense of a prison sentence under the Communists liberators who charge him with a year for each of the 15 million dollars he possesses. Oldrich Kaiser plays the older and wiser Jan who returns to the shattered remains of his favorite bar after being released from jail.

Rated R, 118 mins. (A-) (Four Stars)