In a recent post, a film blogger took issue with the performance of Marisa Berenson as Lady Honoria Lyndon in Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film Barry Lyndon. He opined that Berenson was stiff and lifeless and Kubrick should never have put up with such a performance from her but should have brought in another actor.

In reality, of course, Berenson was giving exactly the performance that Stanley wanted. She is the ideal to which Barry aspired. Once he attained it, he finds that she, and his dream of wealth and power, are lacking. Barry has nothing like the earnest feelings he once had for his cousin back in Ireland. And, indeed, chasing his goal has left its mark on Barry, he is ultimately nearly as hollow as Lady Lyndon herself. His last authentic feelings are for his son Bryan and those are drained when the boy dies as the result of a riding accident.

Perhaps the one element of the story that doesn’t ring true is Barry’s final noble gesture of firing into the ground during his duel with Lord Bullingdon (superbly played by the late Leon Vitali). If Kubrick had stuck to his guns in showing a world where the true cost of climbing the ladder is complete moral decay (no matter how Thackeray plotted the original novel), he would have had Barry put his pistol shot through Bullingdon’s eye. Barry would have his success ratified, with no more young Bullingdon to challenge him for the estate. He would have complete victory but with the corpses of his son and Bullingdon as the companions of his triumph. The coldest possible end to Thackeray’s story.