The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981)

 

Anna and Mike portray two characters in a film set in 19th century England who fall in love despite the fact that Mike's character is engaged.

From memory: Beautifully photographed and staged and well cast romance drama has a complex narrative structure set in two time periods that seemingly interact with each other and seems to try to say something deep, but in the end it's mainly just an upscale tearjerker.

Halliwell*: "Vaguely unsatisfactory and muddled coloured adaptation of a novel which sets its thin story against the entire social background of he Victorian age as related to our own. The attempt to replace this by an equally thin modern story about actors playing the Victorian roles fails rather dismally; but the enterprise supplies points of interest along the way."

Maltin***1/2: "The juxtaposition is jarring at first, but becomes more engaging as the film progresses. Beautifully visualized, with rich period detail, superb performances..."