January 20th, 2014 — 12:02am
***
The Invisible Woman- rm. The poster for this movie tries to summarize the story as follows: Charles Dickens was the most famous writer in the world. His greatest story was the one he could never tell. This is a story of Nelly, an 18 year old actress (Felicity Jones) who is in love with everything Dickens has ever written, produced and acted in and becomes completely smitten with this brilliant and charming man himself. Charles Dickens (played by Ralph Fiennes who also directed the movie), the renowned, author, actor who is married with 10 children and is 2 ½ times the age of the young actress and has a son who is at least her age. He is drawn to the young woman seemingly because she is so into him and his work. The setting is Victorian England so apparently Dickens would never want to besmirch the young woman’s reputation with whom he is now having an affair even after he announces in the newspaper that he has separated from his wife and denies all rumors that Nelly is his love. She is expected to live in the outskirts of the city, alone, content with visits from the great author. The story obviously is based on fact from a book by Claire Tomain and was made into a screenplay by Abi Morgan. It is attractively filmed, showing the magnificent countryside of Margate, England, the period dress of the main characters and the actors and actresses of the time who are shown acting in Dickens’ plays, the expressive face of Fiennes as Dickens with a subtly graying beard with time and the close-ups of the sensitive beautiful face of his young lover. We are being shown a socially minded Mr. Dickens who on one hand was devoted to trying to help the downtrodden social class of his time by raising money for a children’s hospital and we know also how he exposed the inequities and poverty in his writings. But on the other hand we see a narcissistic man who cared mostly about his own writing and seemed to be quite insensitive to the most important women in his life.  It has to be a special accomplishment when the star of the movie is also the director, which was the case here. However, that might account for not editing the 111 minutes little tighter, as the lingering facial studies may have lingered longer than necessary for effect. (2014)
Comment » | 3 Stars, Biography, Drama
January 22nd, 2012 — 6:42pm
***
The Iron Lady- rm- An alternate name for this movie might be Margaret Thatcher meets Golden Pond but more about that a little later. The take away story of this movie is that Meryl Streep turned in an unbelievable performance as the famed British Prime Minister. The strength, character and the obstinacy of this woman during the height of her career comes across as most authentic as did her sensitivity, vulnerability and reminiscences in her twilight years. Streep once again establishes herself as one of the outstanding actresses of our time (in this case helped somewhat by a great makeup job as she ages.) The movie shows the development of the conservative philosophy of Thatcher as the young daughter of a grocer who then with an Oxford education carries forth her social and political beliefs as she becomes a Member of Parliament. We get a sense of her determination not to be deterred as she takes her place in what is essentially an old boy’s club. The movie drops the audience in the middle of the exciting British history as we see Thatcher stand up for her philosophical view on economic issues such as trying to balance the budget which triggered violent responses by the masses of people who felt they were being treated unfairly. We see her make the decision to go to war against Argentina in the Falkland Island incident with the loss of hundreds if not thousands of lives although nothing substantial but Britain’s pride was at stake. Certainly these depictions are quite timely as they reflect the political debate going on now as the United States Conservative and Tea Party movements demand balanced financial budgets at the expense taking away services to the needy. The movie also reminds us of the split among various factions on how our own military should react. The movie was at it’s best when it showed Thatcher carrying out her conservative philosophy and dealing with the consequences of it. We wish we could have seen more of this. Instead, a good part of the storyline dealt with the vehicle of viewing Thatcher as an older woman with memory problems who is grieving the death of her husband (Jim Broadbent) and having hallucinatory visions of him. She is also having flashbacks of her relationship with him and her early life. It is always an unhappy story when a person’s mind fails them in later life and that certainly can happen to anyone. We don’t see how such a sad occurrence was relevant to Thatcher’s story, whether it was actually true and what was the purpose of emphasizing this in the film. There also is a vague suggestion that her dedication to her career has somehow made her distant from her children. If the writer (Abi Morgan) and director (Phyllida Lloyd) were trying to make a point about how this actually happened in Thatcher’s life, this should have been more clearly delineated. While we believe the story leaves something to be desired, the performance by Streep makes the movie quite worthwhile. (2011)
Comment » | 3 Stars, Biography, History
The Invisible Woman- rm. The poster for this movie tries to summarize the story as follows: Charles Dickens was the most famous writer in the world. His greatest story was the one he could never tell. This is a story of Nelly, an 18 year old actress (Felicity Jones) who is in love with everything Dickens has ever written, produced and acted in and becomes completely smitten with this brilliant and charming man himself. Charles Dickens (played by Ralph Fiennes who also directed the movie), the renowned, author, actor who is married with 10 children and is 2 ½ times the age of the young actress and has a son who is at least her age. He is drawn to the young woman seemingly because she is so into him and his work. The setting is Victorian England so apparently Dickens would never want to besmirch the young woman’s reputation with whom he is now having an affair even after he announces in the newspaper that he has separated from his wife and denies all rumors that Nelly is his love. She is expected to live in the outskirts of the city, alone, content with visits from the great author. The story obviously is based on fact from a book by Claire Tomain and was made into a screenplay by Abi Morgan. It is attractively filmed, showing the magnificent countryside of Margate, England, the period dress of the main characters and the actors and actresses of the time who are shown acting in Dickens’ plays, the expressive face of Fiennes as Dickens with a subtly graying beard with time and the close-ups of the sensitive beautiful face of his young lover. We are being shown a socially minded Mr. Dickens who on one hand was devoted to trying to help the downtrodden social class of his time by raising money for a children’s hospital and we know also how he exposed the inequities and poverty in his writings. But on the other hand we see a narcissistic man who cared mostly about his own writing and seemed to be quite insensitive to the most important women in his life.  It has to be a special accomplishment when the star of the movie is also the director, which was the case here. However, that might account for not editing the 111 minutes little tighter, as the lingering facial studies may have lingered longer than necessary for effect. (2014)