The Invisible Woman (Dir. Ralph Fiennes). Me and the missus greatly enjoyed this film, which is based around the life of Nelly Ternan - Dickens secret lover of 10 years & the mother of an illegitimate son. Who knew? (aside from people who have read Claire Tomalins book on which the film is based, I mean) Although Victorian values seems such a familiar idea, their impact on the films main characters nevertheless managed to feel quite disturbing. Dickens emerges as a flawed, conflicted man who is caught between his energy, enthusiasm and zest for life, and the eras great disapproval of spreading your zestiness too wide. Quite wrongly, Id only ever imagined Dickens as a serious man, earnestly preoccupied with the plight of the poor, so I really liked the way the film reconstructed him as quite an exuberant party boy, at times. And I wanted to join in completely whenever the frolics and cavorting started with Wilkie Collins*. Anyway, who will ultimately pay the price for scurrilously cocking a snook at polite societys morals? Will it be the immensely popular and wealthy, celebrity male author? Or his plump, plain wife who brings nothing to the table aside from bearing and mothering his 10 children while he gallivants around the country reading to his fans? Or his much younger gentle-woman friend, who is enraptured by the authors writing, has no obvious marital or financial prospects, comes from a theatrical family, but cannot even abide being under the same roof as the unmarried Wilkie Collins and the slattern widow he is shamelessly shacked up with. Yet who finds that fate (and her mother, and all her sisters, and the author, and her own burgeoning hormones) have decided that her destiny is to become a gentle-woman friend with benefits. Im not going to spoil the surprise. Clearly, it could go any way, so I urge you to see the film and find out. --- *The mischievous Tom Hollander i.e. BBC2s Rev and my favourite church leader; a man so perplexed and bamboozled by the challenges of being a CofE priest in inner-city London that this week he had to check with a local Imam to clarify whether it was okay to accept cash raised by one of his parishioners who had been selling highly cut crack cocaine (seed funded by the Reverend himself) to the parishs local teenagers.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 03:46:56 +0000
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