Moll Flanders
June 1996
Role: Artist's father (Mr. Fielding)

Video clip of Jeremy's scene

This was Jeremy's final performance on-screen, and the movie was released after his death. 

The movie is based on the character Moll Flanders in Daniel Defoe's novel, Moll Flanders, but the screenplay differs a great deal from the novel. 

The story of Moll Flanders (played by Robin Wright Penn) is set in 18th century England. Moll, an orphan, has been cast out of her convent school and, in desperation, winds up working at a bordello. A starving artist procures her services as a model, and the two wind up in love. The artist, it turns out is the prodigal son of a wealthy family. When he takes her to the family estate, mother and father are Not Pleased. This is where Jeremy's few minutes of screen time come in.  

From a review in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Moll is wooed into prostitution with the promise of riches. Instead, the life soon leaves her dissipated and disillusioned.

Her unlikely rescuer rents her for the evening, not to sleep with her but to paint her. He is a tortured artist seeking inspiration, played by John Lynch. She becomes his muse.

He bares his soul, she bares her bosom, they fall in love. He, it turns out, is born to an affluent family whose crude bluntness -- personified by a snarlingly supercilious patriarch portrayed by the late Jeremy Brett -- proves them more common than Moll will ever be. They marry despite his family's objections and the union is the best thing to happen to either of them, which means it is too good to last.

IMDb page

DVD available:  Amazon U.S. //  Amazon U.K.