Category: Costume drama

The Go-Between (1971)

Julie Christie enlists young Dominic Guard to pass notes in classic adaptation The Go Between

Director: Joseph Losey

Cast: Julie Christie (Marian Maudsley), Alan Bates (Ted Burgess), Dominic Guard (Leo Colston), Margaret Leighton (Mrs Maudsley), Michael Redgrave (Older Leo Colston), Edward Fox (Hugh, Viscount Trimingham), Michael Gough (Mr Maudsley), Richard Gibson (Marcus Maudsley), Roger Lloyd-Pack (Charles)

“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”

It’s a classic line from JP Hartley’s masterpiece novel of youthful disillusionment and trauma, The Go-Between. This film version perfectly captures the novel’s wistful reflections on a past that seems bright and glowing to the young boy caught up in the centre, while carefully and subtly suggesting the darker currents and temptations that lie under the surface. 

In 1900, 12-year-old Leo Colston (Dominic Guard), a middle class boy, spends the summer at the country house of his wealthy school friend. There he finds himself increasingly drawn to the glamour and kindness of the family, who do their best to make Leo feel at home – particularly Marian (Julie Christie), the daughter of the house. Leo also befriends local farmer Ted Burgess (Alan Bates) and finds himself recruited to carry letters between Marian and Ted, little understanding what the messages and arrangements between the two may mean, and what it might mean for her engagement with the decent Viscount Trimingham (Edward Fox). 

The Go-Between is a perfect Chekovian tragedy, which brilliantly captures the hypocrisy and dangers of the final days of the Victorian era. Of course it bubbles down to sex – and there is tonnes of it beneath the surface in the quietly built passion between Marian and Ted. But it’s also class as well – the primary reason why Marian’s affair with Ted remains so illicit is because the farmer (as the younger family members make abundantly clear) is socially unacceptable.

Class weaves itself into every part of the film. The Maudsley family work over time to make Leo feel as comfortable as possible in the house as they are all aware of the social gap between them. The Maudsley family treat Leo as almost a sort of social obligation, quietly buying him new clothes (as he ‘must have forgotten to pack’ the correct clothing for the scorching summer heat) and making much of him at the local cricket game. But Leo can never really forget that he falls somewhere in the middle between the Maudsleys and Tony, and finds himself out of place with both. This awkwardness is perfectly captured in Dominic Guard’s bashful performance.

Class is also lies under Marian’s affair with Burgess – and she seems to know it can never last. Indeed, she has every intention it seems of marrying Trimingham. Trimingam and her father, it’s implied, are even aware of the affair and expect it to burn out. It’s Mrs Maudsley who seems most threatened by the social possibilities of the affair – while the men expect the normal order to reassert itself, Mrs Maudsley (Margaret Leighton, who brilliantly simmers at the edge of the whole film before dominating its closing scenes) seems far more aware of the dangers that love and attraction have.

But it’s a story where the real victims turn out to be those outside the family. Ted Burgess (expertly played by Alan Bates, who made a living of playing son of the soil types like this) winds up feeling like an innocent, a bashful teenager who barely seems to know where to look when Marian accompanies him on the piano while he sings at the celebration after the village cricket match (Mrs Maudsley is appalled at this point). And Ted (constantly described as a lady-killer by Maudsley and Trimingham, despite all evidence to the contrary in his manner – further signposting their awareness of the affair) constantly feels like the weaker partner in the relationship, besotted with the lady of the manor.

As that lady, Julie Christie gives an intriguing performance (even if she is slightly too old for the part). Christie’s Marian is strangely distant, despite her many acts of kindness towards Leo. To what extent is she merely using the boy, winning him over with affection to manipulate him later to deliver her messages? How much does she care for the boy? She understands her relationship with Ted can never be – and is more than prepared to marry Trimingham – but how much is that a defence mechanism against her true feelings? We get only a half suggestion, as Leo does, of how she may really feel. It’s subtly left open for most of the film. 

The film uses a neat device of intercutting moments of the story with the far older Leo (Michael Redgrave, whose voice is perfect for the moments of narration) revisiting the locations of the story again. Everything is in contrast to the bright, luxurious summer of 1900 as the older Leo heads around windswept and rainy locations. Unlike the past, the present day finds the soundtrack drained out by sound effects and ambient noise. It’s a quiet reminder of the foreboding doom that lies over the story – and the film makes good business from the suggestion of trauma that has affected Leo resulting from the events of 1900, and how it has shattered and reshaped his life.

Losey’s direction is a perfect capturing of the languid heat of that 1900 summer, and he perfectly frames events and action for maximum impact. It’s a film made of small looks, quiet asides and suggestions to the audience played from the perspective of a child, where we need to interpret the things we see to get a full understanding of what’s really happening and its implications. Harold Pinter’s script is equally strong, perfectly capturing the mood and feel of Hartley’s novel.

The Go-Between is an excellent film, stuffed with good performances (in addition to those mentioned, Edward Fox and Michael Gough are both excellent), and beautifully shot and filmed. It’s an intelligent and very faithful adaptation of the book that still manages to make the book more cinematic, with the intercutting between past and present giving us a sense of Greek tragedy, and the interrelations between the characters staged with subtly and intrigue. A wonderful adaptation of a great novel.

Albert Nobbs (2011)

Glenn Close plays a woman pretending to be a man in the curiously empty Albert Nobbs

Director: Rodrigo Garcia

Cast: Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs), Mia Wasikowska (Helen Dawes), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Joe Mackins), Janet McTeer (Hubert Page), Pauline Collins (Mrs Baker), Brenda Fricker (Polly), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Viscount Yarrell), Brendan Gleeson (Dr Holloran), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Mary), Mark Williams (Sean), Bronagh Gallagher (Cathleen Page)

Passion projects are funny things. Everyone has them. And sometimes, when you put them together, other people struggle to see what all the fuss was about. Few films fit that bill more readily than Albert Nobbs. This cross-dressing, Victorian gender curio was something Glenn Close spent decades trying to bring to the screen, after starring in the original play off-Broadway.

Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close) works as a butler at a middling hotel in late 19th-century Dublin. Nobbs keeps himself to himself and saves his tips and wages with the dream of buying his own tobacco shop. Nobbs also has another reason to cling to privacy: Nobbs is actually a woman, masquerading as a man in order to find work. Everyone at the hotel is totally fooled – but his world slowly begins to shift when he meets decorator Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), who similarly is a woman living as man, but who has her own business and a wife and family home. Page’s experiences make Nobbs begin to question this life of isolation – with disastrous consequences.

Albert Nobbs is a carefully filmed, respectful, dry and dull film. It’s nominally a film you might expect to have something to say about gender and sexuality – but its shyness around such matters, its lack of insight, its bashful awkwardness means it already looks like a museum piece. On top of which, most of the characters and situations it covers are frankly not particularly inspiring, dynamic or engaging. There isn’t actually much there to spark your attention.

Which it makes it even more surprising that Close was so drawn to this material. Why? It’s hard to say, as even her performance seems as buttoned up, oblique and distanced as the character she is playing (it doesn’t help that Nobbs is neither an interesting or engaging character, coming across like a person with an ill-formed personality, whom the viewer struggles to understand). You would expect her to have some sort of deep emotional bond with this character – but I’m not sure that really comes across.

The film fundamentally lacks the courage it needs to tackle issues of gender complexity. Nobbs has a troubled background of abuse and rape – but the story never really tackles this, instead using it as a lazy attempt to explain a confused sexuality. The film never really engages with the issue of whether Nobbs likes being a man or feels forced to do to make ends meet. It throws in a curveball scene where Nobbs relaxes on a beach walk wearing women’s clothes. But it never takes any step – even the most tentative ones – of Nobbs laying claim to relating more to being one gender or another. 

Nobbs doesn’t seem to identify as a trans man, a cis-gender woman disguising herself as a man for practical reasons in a patriarchal world, or as someone trying to live outside traditional gender constructs all together. It feels pretty uncomfortable with virtually any formulation along these lines, so avoids exploring any of them. It wants Nobbs to feel comfortable in women’s clothes, but also wants to admire Nobbs for living as a man, while also suggesting Nobbs is trapped by society. It’s a confused film.

In any case, the more time you spend with Nobbs the creepier Nobbs seems. It’s unfortunate that a large chunk of the film is given over to Nobbs’ confusingly motivated courtship of Mia Wasikowska’s maid. Throughout, Nobbs is strangely incapable of understanding any sort of emotional link between two people, and here seems unable to comprehend that Helen may have her own emotions and desires that don’t marry with Nobbs’ functional desire for a wife. This pursuit (seemingly to complete the picture of a desired future) creates an image of a stalker rather than someone really seeking a romantic connection. The fact that Helen and her rakish beau plan to swindle Nobbs hardly helps to make these characters likeable either.

Close’s performance doesn’t help with its locked in reverence. So it’s just as well that Janet McTeer bursts into the film with energy, (literally) baring all in seconds and bringing more vibrancy, dynamism and engagement in her scenes than the rest of the film put together. While Nobbs is a rather dull, empty vessel of a person, Page is a lesbian in a loving relationship, escaping marriage by pretending to be a man. That is a story I can get interested in, that can have relevance today: Nobbs’ isn’t. McTeer is excellent, and I wish the film her been about her.

Albert Nobbs is a worthy, but flat film shot with a slow reverence and delivering a story that promises much but completely fails to deliver. Aside from Janet McTeer’s wonderful performance there is very little reason to visit this film. In fact today its avoidance of even engaging with questions of gender and identity actually make it look rather gutless and pointless. A passion project that really makes no real sense.

Black Narcissus (1947)

Deborah Kerr leads a community of nuns struggling with temptations in the classic Black Narcissus

Director: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Cast: Deborah Kerr (Sister Clodagh), Sabu (Young General), David Farrar (Mr Dean), Kathleen Byron (Sister Ruth), Flora Robson (Sister Philippa), Jenny Laird (Sister Honey), Judith Furse (Sister Briony), Esmond Knight (Old General), Jean Simmons (Kanchi), May Hallatt (Angu Ayah)

In 1947, people hadn’t seen anything like Black Narcissus. Its triumphant technicolour was like nothing that had been made before – and watching it now on a brand new, shiny restoration, it’s still overwhelmingly impressive. Alongside this beautifully shot action, we have a storyline surprisingly modern in its acute psychology and questioning of the strengths and weaknesses of human nature.

Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) is given leadership of a group of nuns in a remote Himalayan harem building converted into a nunnery. But the isolation of the mountains and the strange atmosphere of the harem bring out weaknesses in the characters of the nuns, leading to profound challenges to their spiritual and mental well-being – not least Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who becomes increasingly pre-occupied with local land captain Mr Dean (David Farrar).

Powell and Pressburger’s film is a brilliant, slightly hard to interpret, psychological gothic drama, a du Maurier-style sexually charged drama set in an exotic Indian location which the nuns struggle to understand. It’s a curious melange of scenes, often moving swiftly, sometimes only with narrow bridge scenes, meaning you soon get as lost in how much time has passed as the nuns themselves. Several key events take place off screen, and the native Indians are curious, unknowable and strangely intimidating in their distance and coolness.

All this is to help build the audience into feeling as unsettled as the characters themselves. It’s a film about the struggles between expression and repression. The two principal nuns – Sisters Clodagh and Ruth – both show elements of this. Both are drawn towards the earthy, manly but still patrician Dean, but both handle these emotions in very different ways – one by denying those feelings, another by trying to embrace them. All of this takes place in a distancing and intoxicating environment, where the convention rules of life seem suspended.

For Sister Clodagh, Dean serves as a bridge back to her own frustrated romantic feelings for an old flame – whose failure to propose guided her towards taking the veil – and elements of her warmer persona (witnessed by us in flashback). But Clodagh resolves never to make herself a slave to these feelings, and these moments of remembrance seem to make her cling all the more to her order – even while the film suggests that it is a strange mixture of pride, insecurity and fear as well as faith that motivates her.

By contrast, Sister Ruth – already acknowledged by the Mother Superior as not an obvious choice for the sisterhood – increasingly loses her grip first on her faith, then sanity, as she struggles with the feelings she clearly has for Dean. This quiet obsession has built up in her mind into representing all the desires for freedom and independence she feels while in the order. Where Clodagh resolves to cling closer to the repression of her feelings, Ruth rejects this very idea and determines to express herself – even as it costs her everything. 

This heated growing madness is powers the film – and Kathleen Byron provides most of the drama with a stunningly unhinged performance, which builds so quietly (almost in the background of the film) that it never becomes wearing and also surprises with the extent of her unhinged delusion. One particular night-time encounter with Clodagh sizzles with rival agendas – one woman using a lipstick, the other using a Bible. 

Powell (and it was Powell who largely directed these Archers pictures) uses a variety of techniques to develop this unease. Several shots are direct POV shots, with the audience becoming one of the characters, giving us the slightly unsettling feeling of being addressed by the actors. Quick tableaux editing gives us economic storytelling and a sense of events building swiftly towards a head (several sequences use a series of quick cuts of characters reacting to events). The camera uses a series of close-ups of sweaty foreheads or dizzying, vertigo inducing shots of the Himalayas to increase the unease. A later shot shows Sister Ruth moving through a shimmeringly filmed jungle, bringing a sense of confused eroticism to the picture.

Sexuality is a major theme of the film – and the characters have a series of acknowledged or unacknowledged sexual interests in each other. The music and camera work develop a sense of heated intensity on the mountain that suggests a simmering heat that unnerves the mind and throws open the temptations of physicality. Old wall paintings from the harem of bare-breasted women seem to be a constant presence – no wonder feelings are running high.

Jack Cardiff’s photography is simply extraordinary – it’s hard to believe none of this was filmed on location and most of it was shot in a studio – and this is still a film today that is hugely beautiful. The production by Alfred Junge is hugely impressive, with the nunnery a triumph of mismatched themes.

It’s not perfect. It’s a bit awkward to see actors blacking up. Some of the acting is quite OTT or stagy – in particular May Hallatt at points – and the film’s occasional delight in its visual appeal means its themes don’t always get the exploration that they deserve. One of the disadvantages of its deliberately vague timeline is that sometimes events happen too soon – or we don’t get enough sense of why they are happening. But these are blemishes.

This is a masterfully made picture, still beautiful to look at with impressive performances from Kerr, Byron, Farrar and many of the rest of the cast. It’s a surprisingly gothic melodrama by the end, with reds splashed across the screen with an imposing sense of threat. Still one that needs to be seen: and the end is so melodramatically gothic considering where the film started that the fact it doesn’t seem hugely jarring is an enormous tribute to the talents of those involved.

Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson are the feuding queens in Mary, Queen of Scots

Director: Charles Jarrott

Cast: Vanessa Redgrave (Mary, Queen of Scots), Glenda Jackson (Elizabeth I), Patrick McGoohan (James Stuart, Earl of Moray), Timothy Dalton (Lord Henry Darnley), Nigel Davenport (Earl of Bothwell), Trevor Howard (Sir William Cecil), Daniel Massey (Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester), Ian Holm (David Rizzio), Andrew Keir (Ruthven), Robert James (John Knox), Katherine Kath (Catherine d’Medici), Frances White (Mary Fleming), Vernon Dobtcheff (Duke of Guise)

So here we are, back in the Tudor history craze of late 1960s Hollywood. Charles Jarrott directed, following up his efforts in Anne of the Thousand Days with this professionally mounted, handsome and rather personality-free film adaptation. It occasionally falls a bit too much in love with its luscious romanticism – and it falls hard for Mary herself, surely one of the worst queens ever – but despite all that, it has an entertaining quality that never lets you down.

The film picks up with the recently widowed Mary (Vanessa Redgrave) essentially being chucked out of France after the death of her husband the King, and swiftly being sent back to Scotland to take up the throne there. Problem is: the very Catholic Mary isn’t exactly the choice of the lords of Scotland – led by her bastard brother James Stuart (Patrick McGoohan). Mary’s Catholicism also threatens to destabilise the relationship with Protestant England – particularly because she is the nearest successor to Elizabeth I (Glenda Jackson). But Mary lacks Elizabeth’s tactical understanding of ruling and is guided by her heart – leading her into a disastrous marriage with feckless alcoholic Henry Darnley (Timothy Dalton).

Mary Queen of Scots is a stately picture, which uses its location shots, costumes and production design to tell its familiar story with a sweep and relish that effectively hides the lack of inspiration in its film-making. Just as in Anne of the Thousand Days, Charles Jarrott shows he’s a fine producer of middle-brow entertainment, safe costume dramas that aren’t going to challenge anyone’s perceptions or give you any real wow moments of filming. He’s happy to set the camera up and let the actors do their thing, with the script ticking off the great events.

That’s what you get here. It’s a film that could have been a lot more of an exploration of the rivalries and different life philosophies of its feuding queens. But it doesn’t quite connect with that. This is partly because it can’t quite bring itself to engage with the reality of Mary herself, preferring the popular romantic image. The film doesn’t want to admit that many of Mary’s decisions were, to put it bluntly, completely misguided bordering on wrong. It is in love with her romantic image – and not as enamoured with Elizabeth’s wiser, more pragmatic, manipulative rule. It’s this rule by heart rather than head the film finally holds up for praise.

It doesn’t help that Vanessa Redgrave feels miscast in the lead role. Redgrave is too sharp an actor to convince as someone as easily led and foolish as Mary. She looks too shrewd, she feels too smart. Redgrave compensates by speaking softly and giving a lot of love-struck eyes to various male actors (principally Nigel Davenport’s bluff, masculine Bothwell), but it doesn’t quite work. It’s like she’s struggling to find the character – and to find the balance in a film that doesn’t want her to be seen as too stupid, while the viewer is left slapping their foreheads at every action she carries out.

This feeling stands out all the more with Glenda Jackson’s casting as Elizabeth. Having just finished playing the same role in a landmark six-part TV series, Elizabeth R(which covered a lot of the same ground), Jackson here confirms that she was the definitive Elizabeth. As smart and shrewd an actress as Redgrave, Jackson’s natural firmness marries up very well with these qualities to make the perfect Virgin Queen. There have been so many others who have taken on the role, but Jackson is simply perfect in this role – she becomes Elizabeth. Her Elizabeth is clever, manipulative, cunning but also quick tempered, capable of great wisdom but prone to moments of passionate lashing out.

The rest of the cast is a familiar parade of character actors – British actors of this generation made a living from films like this! Timothy Dalton stands out as a foppish, clearly useless Darnley (here reimagined as a syphilitic bisexual with anger management issues), as does Ian Holm as a cool-headed, would-be power behind the throne David Riccio, who meets a tragic end. Daniel Massey does a decent job as Leicester (though I can’t shake memories of Robert Hardy in the same role in Elizabeth R – was he busy at the time?), Trevor Howard gets saddled with a lot of plot as Burghley. Up in Scotland, Patrick McGoohan has a lot of fun as a scheming Earl of Moray.

All of these actors fit comfortably into the slightly browned, grainy photography style of films of this type, and the screenwriters hammer together plenty of incident alongside dramatic invention. The focus on the soap opera of Mary’s three marriages (she’s widowed in the opening moments of the film) leaves plenty of scope for invention, from Darnley and Riccio’s affair to the inevitable non-historical meeting between Mary and Elizabeth – it seems like every drama going from Schiller onwards has invented a meeting between these two as a dramatic highpoint.

This final scene captures the lack of thematic depth to the film. In a film that had focused more on really comparing the differences between the two, this could have been the culmination of a debate running through the film (can you rule with a brain but not a heart?). Instead it misses the trick, and becomes a final game of one-up-man-ship, which the film allows Mary to win because she is the more romantic figure. 

It’s well mounted and assembled like many other films like this – but it’s not the best of its genre, and you do sometimes wish for something that had a little more meat on its bones.

The Young Victoria (2009)

Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend play the royal couple in the cozy The Young Victoria

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée

Cast: Emily Blunt (Queen Victoria), Rupert Friend (Prince Albert), Paul Bettany (Lord Melbourne), Miranda Richardson (Duchess of Kent), Mark Strong (Sir John Conroy), Jim Broadbent (King William IV), Harriet Walter (Queen Adelaide), Thomas Kretschmann (King Leopold), Jesper Christensen (Baron Stockmar), Jeanette Hain (Baroness Lehzen), Julian Glover (Lord Wellington), Michael Maloney (Sir Robert Peel), Michel Huisman (Prince Ernest), Rachael Stirling (Duchess of Sutherland)

Now ITV’s Victoria exists, it’s a bit strange to go back and watch The Young Victoria. With the love today of long-form drama, and the time it can invest in things, it’s funny to see what the drama took almost 8 hours to do being crammed into an hour and a half here. But saying that, The Young Victoria is still an entertaining, luscious viewing experience which, while it has some strange ideas about certain events, is the sort of relaxing Sunday afternoon viewing that will take you out of yourself.

After the death of William IV (a slightly overripe Jim Broadbent), Victoria (Emily Blunt) is elevated to the throne. Finally able to shed the control of her mother’s (Miranda Richardson) domineering secretary Sir John Conway (Mark Strong), Victoria is determined to steer her own course. But she is surrounded by competing influences, not least from the charming arch-politician Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany). King Leopold of Belgium (Thomas Kretschmann) dispatches his nephew Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) to England with the express interest of marrying Victoria and controlling her – but Albert and Victoria find themselves as kindred spirits, supporting each other to rule.

The Young Victoria is the epitome of prestige costume dramas. It looks fantastic, the cinematography is ravishing, the production and costume design exquisite. It’s pretty clear what the producers thought would sell the picture abroad. The royal regalia is pushed very much to the fore, and we get some wonderfully sweeping scenes, not least an impressively large-scale coronation. The soundtrack brilliantly riffs on Handel, and Julian Fellowes’ script mixes period regal style with a sweeping feeling of romance between Victoria and Albert.

The film actually does a very good job of repositioning Victoria as a young woman, and gives her a strong quality of self-determination and a desire to be herself in a man’s world. It’s really helped in this by the combination of imperial strength, girlish wilfulness and sharp intelligence Emily Blunt brings to the role. Blunt and the film also aren’t afraid to show that, however much Victoria had guts and determination, she was also quite a headstrong woman not above making emotionally led mistaken decisions. In fact, much of the drama spins out of Victoria learning to try and put these youthful crushes and prejudices aside.

Having said that, it’s interesting that the successful conclusion of the film centres on Victoria accepting that she needs the help of Albert to run the kingdom, and that she needs to remove competing influences for her affection – Melbourne and Lehzen – to focus her affection and loyalty on him. The film frames this as a winning romance and a successful partnership (which it was) – but it’s also vaguely creepy if you think about it. Mind you, since all the affectionate influences on Victoria are implied by the script to be at least partly motivated by self-interest, with the possible exception (eventually) of Albert, it manages to suggest this was for the best.

Albert’s background gets some interesting exploration here. He’s very much presented at first as the tool of Leopold as a means of controlling British politics. But he is far too independent, smart and noble to ever be the means of manipulation. Friend is very good here – his performance is quiet, authoritative but also heartfelt. Fellowes guilds the lily a bit to show his devotion by having Albert shot by a would-be assassin late-on in the film. Historically the assassin’s pistol wasn’t loaded, and Albert didn’t get shot (though Fellowes protests Albert didput himself in front of Victoria and that this intent is what’s important, not whether he was shot or not) but the moment does work – it gives the drama a boost and it’s undeniably moving.

While Albert is presented overwhelmingly sympathetically, interestingly Lord Melbourne gets quite a kicking. Paul Bettany is presented far more as a rival love interest than the sort of father-figure Melbourne was in real life (Bettany is probably 20 years younger than the real Prime Minister). Melbourne is shown as cynical, controlling, manipulative and overwhelmingly motivated by self-interest (a few more pushes and he would virtually become the film’s villain). He’s constantly contrasted negatively with Michael Maloney’s upright, honest Sir Robert Peel (one of my favourite statesmen of the 19th century so at least I’m pleased) – and his relationship with Victoria is one of self-promotion, which seems odd seeing as historically the two of them were so close. 

The film introduces other villains for us to hiss at. Kretschmann and Christensen do a good job as arch political schemers. Our real villain though is Mark Strong, who does a great job of scowling, controlling nastiness as the failed-bully Sir John Conroy. Strong’s performance works so well because he makes it clear that Conroy feels that his “Kensington System” (an attempt to manipulate and cow Princess Victoria into being a submissive puppet) is genuinely in her best interest, and that he genuinely cares for her. His partnership with Miranda Richardson as Victoria’s near-love-struck mother works very well.

The Young Victoriathrows in enough interesting character beats like this for it to really work as an enjoyable afternoon period-drama. With some great performances – Emily Blunt carries the movie brilliantly – and while some of the historical characterisation is a bit off, and other moments feel a little too chocolate box it’s a very entertaining, undemanding view., it’s great fun. The hardcore Victorian costume-drama fans will probably prefer Victoriafor the same story in more depth – but this film does it with great sweep (and doesn’t cram in Victoria’s stupid below-stairs plotlines!).

Pride and Prejudice (2005)


Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen are drowned in the shadow of the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice

Director: Joe Wright

Cast: Keira Knightley (Elizabeth Bennet), Matthew Macfadyen (Mr Darcy), Brenda Blethyn (Mrs Bennet), Donald Sutherland (Mr Bennet), Tom Hollander (Mr Collins), Rosamund Pike (Jane Bennet), Carey Mulligan (Kitty Bennet), Jena Malone (Lydia Bennet), Talulah Riley (Mary Bennet), Judi Dench (Lady Catherine de Bourgh), Simon Woods (Mr Bingley), Tamzin Merchant (Georgiana Darcy), Claudie Blakely (Charlotte Lucas), Kelly Reilly (Caroline Bingley), Rupert Friend (Mr Wickham), Penelope Wilton (Mrs Gardner), Peter Wight (Mr Gardiner)

I’ve written before about certain books having been adapted so successfully there feels very little point rolling out another. If ever an adaptation set this principle, it’s the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Not only did it perfectly capture the spirit and style of the book, with perfect scripting and direction, but the two lead actors – Jennifer Ehle and especially Colin Firth – were simply perfect (for all his achievements, the first line of Firth’s obituary will forever be “Darcy Dies”.)

So Joe Wright and his team were already climbing a mountain when they announced plans to make a new adaptation of Jane Austen’s most beloved novel. What they’ve produced in the end is a well-made, handsomely mounted film full of visual invention – that has been pretty much rejected by nearly everyone I know who loves Austen. It’s a film that, in attempting to plough its own furlough, has ended up not really pleasing anyone: for the casual viewer it’s an entertaining but forgettable watch. For the Austen fan it’s just plain not right.

Structurally the film places Elizabeth’s relationship with Darcy slap bang at the centre, and has little to no interest in anything else. This leads to major themes and relationships being neglected or outright abandoned in some bizarre cut choices. The film wants to front-and-centre Lizzy’s increasing isolation – so Jane is dispatched from the film for almost over an hour. Even more oddly, Wickham is cut down to a few spare scenes – which makes her passionate sympathy for him and anger against Darcy make very little sense. All this isolation also means we never really understand the social implications and importance of marriage – in fact the whole thing is basically turned into a Cinderella romance: Rich Man Meets Poor Girl (And No One Else Matters). 

Which means a lot of the focus for the film lands on Keira Knightley. Is there a more controversial actor in film than Knightley? Oscar-nominated for the role, among my Austen-loving friends I have found only revulsion against her performance. She plays it with spirit but too much of a modern sensibility. She’s fine, but she’s just not convincing: she doesn’t look like her, she doesn’t have her warmth and wit and seems more like she’s wandered in from some sort of “flirty girls” comedy. Nothing really communicates the character’s intelligence and wit – and Knightley probably looks a little too modern for the whole thing to work. 

On top of that the film doesn’t want her to be too unsympathetic at any point, so dials down her judgemental nature, and also reduces any possibility of us judging her partiality for Wickham by mostly removing him from the film. However, this also removes many of the obstacles from the plot that stand in the way of romance.

Matthew MacFadyen does a decent job as “Nice Guy In A Period Drama”, but the character is just wrong for Darcy. Like Lizzy’s tendency to rush to judgement, Darcy’s apparent coldness and snobbery have been watered down to almost invisibility. His first announcement of love is so genuine, so gentle, so loving that you are amazed that Elizabeth dismisses him out of hand. It’s no surprise this Darcy turns out to be a decent bloke, the edges of the character have been completely shaved off. This puts a big old dent in the plot, reduces his character development, and ruins the impact of sweet later moments like Darcy’s uncertainty when the two meet at Pemberley. 

There are some good performances though. Tom Hollander is very funny as a social-climbing Mr Collins. Donald Sutherland gets so much warmth and twinkly good humour out of Mr Bennet that Wright even ends the film on him (another odd choice, but never mind). Judi Dench could play Lady Catherine standing on her head. Rosamund Pike is rather good as Jane – she totally feels right for the period. Brenda Blethyn largely manages to avoid turning Mrs Bennet into a complete stereotype. Saying that, Simon Woods portrays a version of Bingley so bumbling, tittering and awkward you are amazed either Jane or Darcy could be interested in him, let alone bear to spend time with him.

But then large chunks of the film feel odd. The screenplay works overtime to turn the film into a straight-forward star-crossed lovers story: so it’s Darcy and Elizabeth all the way, and the film is desperate to make them both likeable from the off. And if that means that, in a film called Pride and Prejudice, both the pride and the prejudice have to be junked to make sure even the stupidest audience member will like the hero and heroine, well that’s apparently a price worth paying. Lowering the Bennets’ social status as far as the film does, also turns the story into a full-on Cinderella territory. Darcy and Bingley are so posh an entire room falls silent when they walk in – in comparison the Bennets are so poor they share their house with pigs.

Ah yes the pigs. Why? The Bennets aren’t paupers. If they were, why would Collins want the place? Why would they be invited to the ball? Why would Bingley and Darcy even consider them as partners? Why would a family so aware of impressions have a home that is literallyfull of shit all the time? Why is Mr Bennet scruffy and unshaven – and why doesn’t anyone care? Who designed this? If the Bennets are so fixated on getting good marriages why do they literally live in a pig sty? It’s a visual idea that undermines the whole story.

I’m not joking. Here is a pig walking through the Bennet house.

It’s full of things like this that don’t feel right. The film junks most of the language of the original book, which makes it sound jarring (it even re-works Darcy’s first proposal: “in vain I have struggled, it will not do…” – large numbers of Austen lovers I know can recite those lines verbatim. This film apparently thought it could create a better version. It couldn’t). Large chunks of the film happen in the rain like some sort of version of Wuthering Heights. Why is that? Is it because professions of love in the rain are romantic in a Mills and Boonish sort of way? Or is it an echo back to Firth’s wet shirt?

Emma Thompson’s sublime adaptation of Sense and Sensibility demonstrated that it is completely possible to adapt an Austen novel into a two-hour film and still preserve the characters, relationships, major events and themes of the book, while also making a story that stands on its own two feet for non-Austen-ites. This film bungles its attempt to do the same. 

But there are things Wright gets right. The camera work and transitions are lovely. A long tracking shot that weaves in and around the ball early in the film, taking in every single character is not only a technical marvel but really gets across a feeling of what these hectic and bustling social events are like. There is a beautiful time transition at Longbourn, as Elizabeth rotates on a screen and the camera takes on a POV shot, showing the seasons changing each time the camera revolves around through 180 degrees. The cinematography is luscious and Wright – his first film – shows he was more than ready for the step-up from TV.

It’s just a shame that the film they made doesn’t quite work. It doesn’t capture the sense of the book. It doesn’t capture the sense of the characters. It makes bizarre and just plain wrong choices. It’s a decent film, but it is not a good adaptation of the novel. And that’s a major problem, because if you are going to adapt something as widely loved and revered as this, you better bloody well understand the novel – and I don’t think enough people here did. It’s told with a sweeping romantic style – but they are adapting the perception of Pride and Prejudice rather than the actual story. The chemistry and romance aren’t there: the film even ends with an odd sequence of Sutherland and Knightley, probably because there was better chemistry between these two than the two leads. It’s a film that basically doesn’t work at all.

Phantom Thread (2017)


Vicky Krieps and Daniel Day-Lewis play dangerous games in Paul Thomas Anderson’s fascinating film about control, Phantom Thread

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis (Reynolds Woodcock), Vicky Krieps (Alma Elson), Lelsey Manville (Cyril Woodcock), Camilla Rutherford (Johanna), Gina McKee (Countess Henrietta Harding), Brian Gleeson (Dr Robert Hardy), Harriet Sansom Harris (Barbara Rose), Lujza Richter (Princess Mona Braganza), Judy Davis (Lady Balitmore), Philip Franks (Peter Martin)

The last time Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis worked together, we got a true masterpiece in There Will Be Blood. Phantom Thread couldn’t be much more different. In place of rolling plains, oil, and Day-Lewis as a monstrously larger-than-life alpha male, we get confined rooms, handsome dresses and Day-Lewis as a pernickety, obsessive, creepy dressmaker. But Phantom Thread may also be just as intriguing, thought-provoking and memorable in its way as There Will Be Blood.

Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a leading couturier in 1950s London, whose fashions are highly sought after by the rich and famous. He lives and works with his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville), who dominates his life – and dispatches his various muses as their use comes to an end. On a break near the coast, Reynolds meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), a hotel waitress whom he takes back to London as his latest muse. At first Alma seems to be merely the tool of this fashion Svengali – but Alma has her own desires that quickly spark conflict in the House of Woodcock.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s film has lashings of Daphne du Maurier, Powell and Pressburger (it’s more than a little reminiscent of The Red Shoes) and a slickly inverted Pygmalion. It’s a film that slowly emerges as being about control and the way power relationships can shift and transform. Reynolds at first seems a twisted Henry Higgins: his muses come and go (and, it’s implied, fail to live up to his mother) – he becomes tired of them, and his sister, business partner, factotum and part-time mother-figure Cyril dismisses them when they have served their purpose. 

Reynolds and Alma’s first meeting is one of creepy control. He asks her to memorise his order, wipes her lipstick away so he can “see her” and, in a late night “living mannequin” sequence, dresses her in a series of fabrics and clothes, and offers dispassionate comment about her body. What’s interesting in this sequence though, is that Alma only becomes uncomfortable when Cyril arrives and joins Reynolds in the process. It’s a hint of the developments that will emerge over the course of the film: Alma doesn’t want to share Reynolds.

That’s the tension the film explores from thereon: Reynolds seems to have all the power, but Alma pushes against this to forge her own position as something more than a muse. The film has an acute understanding of the psychology of power in human relationships, which is more than reminiscent of Rebecca: the exact motivations of the characters remain unclear (sometimes even to themselves) until late in the film. The film veers into My Cousin Rachel territory – while giving us a totally unexpected series of emotional developments that spin out of this, which shock but make perfect sense.

That’s because Paul Thomas Anderson has made a sharply observant film about human fallibility and our desire to understand our place in the hierarchies around us, and the unusual paths to contentment that we can find. Like The Red Shoes, it also feels like a film that really understands the psychology of Svengali figures, and adds a Freudian bent to it. Reynolds is looking for a mother to take the place of his own and he is drawn to muses who remind him of her, but who constantly fail to replace her. It’s in the weakness that Reynolds’ perfectionism drives him away from, that he is capable of finding love and happiness.

So the film becomes a series of wonderfully low-key power shifts, many of them revolving around meals. It’s established early that Reynolds demands very precise conditions for his breakfasts – most importantly silence; in every breakfast scene that follows, everything from the loudness of the crunching to the amount of scrapping of jam on toast tells you who is in control. 

Because just as Reynolds wants to craft Alma to take on the perfect muse position for his dressmaking – so Alma wants to craft Reynolds into the perfect combination of high-achieving genius whose success she can vicariously enjoy, and a man who needs her emotionally. Anderson’s brilliant, bitter and waspy screenplay shows the different steps both characters dance through to achieve this. Alma’s solution, and its psychological impact, is brilliantly du Maurier; it’s out there, but makes perfect sense.

Visually the film is beautifully crafted. Anderson shoots a lot of the film with a combination of slow prowling shots, and cameras held at close-up or medium shots that regularly place the actors close to the camera. It means that we always feel like we are right in the middle of the action – looking over the shoulders of actors, or seeing their faces loom into the camera. It obviously creates a claustrophobic feeling, but also one of real intimacy – it’s like the camera is dressing the characters, the same way Reynolds does. But Anderson’s choices pull you closer into the action, and get you really thinking about the psychology of the characters you are watching.

And Anderson wants you to get into the psychology here, because he has cast three actors at the top of their game in this tight-character study. Day-Lewis is of course superb, as a character unnervingly precise and cool – his voice is a perfect combination of icy preciseness, and trembling emotional confusion. Reynolds is in many ways a child – his every whim must be followed, he explodes in foul-mouthed (hilarious) fury at any deviation from his procedures. But he’s also an emotionally stunted man who has never got over the loss of his mother, capable of strong sexual feelings and a yearning for closeness. It’s a subtle, controlled, low-key performance.

But Day-Lewis’ retirement has stolen a lot of the attention from Vicky Krieps, who is sensational as Alma. In many ways, she is the real protagonist of the story. Alma is at first our entry into the story – but we quickly learn we know or understand very little about her. She comes from somewhere in Europe, she may well be Jewish, but Krieps makes her hard to define. Unusual and impossible to understand, Krieps makes her a fascinating character. She emerges as a determined, strong-willed, manipulative figure, looking to have a firm place in her partner’s life – she’s both a toy that bites back, and a woman who will settle for no compromise in what she wants. It’s a fascinating performance. 

Lesley Manville rounds out the cast as the waspish Cyril, deliciously spitting out some cruel lines. Manville is terrific, and Cyril sits in an unusual place in the Woodcock house, partly catering to Reynolds’ demands, partly controlling and positioning him. This makes a perfect foil both for Reynolds’ demanding requirements for a mother, and for Alma’s desire to bring Reynolds under her own influence.

Anderson’s film is a beautiful, fantastically scored, wonderfully acted, intriguing character study, and an insightful exploration of emotional and sexual control and the traps we built for ourselves and for others. It’s a film where every scene is open to interpretation, where both the past and the future seem to haunt events and every resolution leaves questions. It’s a brilliant psychological study that rewards endless thinking, analysis – and I’m sure repeat viewings. I think this one could run and run.

The Woman in Black (2012)


Daniel Radcliffe sneaks round a haunted house in the creepy but not haunting The Woman in Black

Director: James Watkins

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe (Arthur Kipps), Ciarán Hinds (Sam Daily), Janet McTeer (Elizabeth Daily), Liz White (Jennet Humfyre), Roger Allam (Mr Bentley), Tim McMullan (Jerome), Jessica Raine (Joseph’s nanny), Shaun Dooley (Fisher), Mary Stockley (Mrs Fisher), David Burke (PC Collins)

Susan Hill’s 1983 novel is a favourite modern ghost story – not surprising then, after a stage adaptation has been packing them in in the West End since 1987, that it hit cinema screens. Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) is a widowed solicitor whose wife died giving birth to their son (now four years old). He is sent to an abandoned house in the countryside to review documents before the property is sold. The villagers nearby are hostile and wish him to leave. At the house he hears strange noises and sees a woman in black starring at him. Gradually the horrific nature of the house, and the curse on it, becomes clear.

The Woman in Blackis an effective and atmospheric scare-a-thon. It feels very creepy, it looks pretty good, it makes very good use of the sort of inherent terrifying nastiness you find in porcelain dolls, music boxes, creaking chairs, chintzy wall-paper and the wind whistling through the trees. It carries a lovely air of foreboding, and the shots (where we get them) of the woman in black herself carry a great feeling of menace and maliciousness. 

What is just as good though is its slim running time, because, effective as its jumps are, they are all structured in the same way. We get the haunted house late at night. We get Daniel Radcliffe walking round it slowly, breathing heavily, the camera carefully following him. We get slow camera movements around rooms until they begin to rest on an object or something appears in the corner of a frame. And then we get a crash of music and something flashes in front of the camera briefly. It’s a standard “boo” haunted house technique. Sure it’s very well pulled off indeed, and works great when it’s happening, but it’s a basic trick, using a sudden noise and distracting movement. 

Its good craftsmanship to make the same surprise (basically) constantly startling – but it’s like being on a rollercoaster. You can see each dip coming time and time again. You know exactly what’s going to happen, that you going to be plummeted down. And then when it happens you still have the adrenaline, driving your fear. But will you be scared after the rollercoaster has finished? Nope. 

That’s where the film’s sort of horror fails. There is nothing really lingering about this. Even when watching it late at night (as I did) it didn’t leave me unsettled five minutes after it finished. Effective horror films – The Shining – leave us with images and ideas that haunt us for years to come. This one barely lasts seconds. Compare it too, say, Blink, the classic Doctor Who episode. This comes up distant second-best. That works because it has a simple but brilliant idea (statues move!) and it has a brilliantly simple-but-very-hard-to-do way to avoid getting caught (don’t blink!). This just has things jump out at you. All the time.

This film is twice as long but has half the scares and dread of that. But all the film-makers can really think to do with this idea of a child-killing ghost is turn it into a “boo” monster. Charles Dickens’ The Signalman uses a premonition ghost like this to ominous effect – the ghost appears, that’s it. That’s all the haunting you need. Do you need the ghost moving around a house jumping out at Radcliffe? Nope. You start to feel the film-makers couldn’t think how to really extend this idea to fill a film (even one as short as 90 minutes), so needed to pad it out with no less than two extended sequences of Radcliffe creeping round a haunted house, sweating.

In the lead Daniel Radcliffe does his best but, to my eyes, seems hopelessly miscast. For starters he is manifestly far too young to be playing the father of a four-year-old child. Secondly, Arthur Kipps’ emotional trauma and depression seem to be just out of Radcliffe’s range – I’m not sure that Radcliffe is quite the actor I think of for world-weary misery. Now he does a decent job, but he neither looks nor feels quite right for the part. 

he Woman in Black is a B-movie done rather well, but a B-movie and nothing more. It exists to spook you and to make you jump. But, if it aspires to anything else, it never achieves it. As soon as it is finished you’ll never feel a need to see it again – and nothing from it will stick with you even an hour later. It’s a good atmosphere piece, but that’s really all it is. It’s as far from giving you a sleepless night as it could get.

My Cousin Rachel (2017)


Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin in a dance of romance and suspicion in My Cousin Rachel

Director: Roger Michell

Cast: Rachel Weisz (Rachel Ashley), Sam Claflin (Philip Ashley), Iain Glen (Nick Kendall), Holliday Grainger (Louise Kendall), Simon Russell Beale (Court), Pierfrancesca Favino (Enrico Rainaldi), Andrew Havill (Parson Pascoe), Andrew Knott (Joshua)

Did she? Didn’t she? That’s the key phrase this deliberately ambiguous film returns to again and again. Is Cousin Rachel a serial schemer, seductress and possible murderer? Or is she just – well I guess just really unlucky? It’s a difficult line to tread –ambiguity is extremely challenging to bring to film, as it’s a medium that’s pretty decisive in what it shows us first-hand. But My Cousin Rachel pulls this off with a creepy aplomb.

At some point in the 1830s, Philip Ashley (Sam Claflin) receives a letter from his cousin and guardian Ambrose, who has recently passed away in Italy. The letter obliquely accuses Ambrose’s wife, his cousin Rachel (Rachel Weisz), whom Philip has never met, of poisoning Ambrose. As Ambrose died before he could prepare a new will, Philip inherits his estate – but still harbours a rage against Rachel, suspecting her of murder. However, when Rachel comes to stay with him, Philip finds himself increasingly drawn towards, and besotted with, her.

Roger Michell gracefully directs and writes this intriguing little mood piece, a fine chamber-piece thriller. With an unsettlingly lyrical score and shot with a beautiful eye for the Cornish countryside, My Cousin Rachel not only grips, but rings true with anyone who has either (a) fallen blindly in love, (b) suffered from romantic obsession or (c) been paralysed with jealousy. Which is probably just about everyone.

The film relies for its success largely on Rachel Weisz’s exceptionally intelligent and thoughtful performance as Rachel. She looks perfect for the role – she’s both the sort of woman men would fall wildly in love with, and old enough to settle into an unsettling, semi-incestuous flirtation with Philip. Her performance works because Weisz plays the part with exceptional skill, never tipping the wink to the audience, but skilfully modulating and adjusting her performance with every scene so that you remain as uncertain about her actions and motives as anyone else.

Apparently Weisz made her own mind up on Rachel’s guilt and innocence, but never told Michell or Claflin. Intriguing to think that while they shot scenes of domesticity or passion, that only one of those involved really knows what’s happening – a mood that totally carries across to the viewer. Weisz plays the part with complete strength of conviction and straightness – every scene is played as if the feelings in it were completely true and bereft of manipulation. She makes it unreadable, while having a face overflowing with emotion and feeling. Does she understand Philips feelings early and manipulate him? Or does she genuinely not expect his romantic intentions?

Michell skilfully shows how Rachel wins over people with ease. Even the dogs immediately gravitate towards her. Parson Parscoe and his family flock around her. Philip’s servants smarten themselves up and make every effort to make a good impression on her. His godfather Nick seems to oscillate continually in his judgement of her, but even he seems powerless in her presence. The camera carefully hovers and focuses in on Rachel, with many shots focusing on her face alone – seducing us as much as the rest of the characters. We almost never see her except in scenes with Philip – so we have the same information as he does for making our minds up.

Sam Claflin is equally key to the film as Philip. In many ways Philip is quite the whiny teenager – you could easily dismiss him as a romantic young idiot, an obsessive would-be Romeo, who makes a series of terrible decisions through listening to his penis rather than his head. But despite that –/ perhaps because his errors and mistakes seem so universal – it’s easy to sympathise with him. Rather than want to slap him anger, you want to do so in frustration – “don’t do that, you idiot!” Michell and Claflin play his increasing disintegration brilliantly. Is it poison? Or is it his increasing jealousy and obsession unhinging him? Who hasn’t been involved in an unequal romantic obsession?

It’s not a perfect film. Philip’s obsession with Rachel is alarmingly sudden – perhaps too sudden. Towards the end, Michell becomes slightly too enamoured with mystery – a final, lingering shot introduces an element of uncertainty about a character we have never had cause to suspect, which feels like a little too much. At times the lingering camera seems to be trying to suggest more in the performance than Weisz seems willing to give away.

But these are quibbles. The film is well-directed and filmed, and terrifically acted – Glen and Grainger are very good in key supporting roles – but it’s a triumph for Rachel Weisz. Weisz seems like an actor it’s easy to overlook, maybe because she has never quite got the star vehicles her talent matches – but this film is a clear reminder that, at her best, she is an extremely gifted performer.

Wilde (1997)


Jude Law and Stephen Fry in a disastrous love affair in sensitive biopic Wilde

Director: Brian Gilbert

Cast: Stephen Fry (Oscar Wilde), Jude Law (Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas), Jennifer Ehle (Constance Lloyd Wilde), Vanessa Redgrave (Jane Francesca Agnes “Speranza” Wilde), Gemma Jones (Sibyl Douglas), Judy Parfitt (Lady Mount-Temple), Michael Sheen (Robbie Ross), Zoë Wanamaker (Ada Leverson), Tom Wilkinson (Marquess of Queensbury), Ioan Gruffudd (John Gray)

Could there be a more perfect piece of casting than Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde? Not only is Fry the spitting image of the famed Irishman, but Fry’s own mercurial talent, his enormous outpouring of novels, articles and screenplays, his skill as a raconteur and his general ubiquitous presence as a personality make him a pretty good modern equivalent of Oscar Wilde. A lifelong admirer of Wilde – and an increasingly vocal proponent of gay rights and mental health awareness – Wilde’s life plugs into many of Fry’s own outlooks on the world. So yeah, perfect casting!

Opening in 1882 with Wilde’s tour of America (he effortlessly charms a group of clichéd “yee-haw!” silver miners – who literally fire their guns into the air in delight at his bon-mots in the film’s crudest touch), the film covers Wilde’s growing career, but focuses on his personal relationships. Unaware of his homosexuality, he marries Constance (Jennifer Ehle), but discovers his true nature with her friend Robbie Ross (Michael Sheen). However, this leads to his destructive, obsessive love for alternately petulant and caring Lord Alfred Douglas (Jude Law), his beloved “Bosie”. When he is accused publically of sodomy by Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury (a raging Tom Wilkinson, chewing the scenery), Wilde takes the matter to court – a disastrous decision that destroys his life.

Brian Gilbert’s film is a sensitive and lovingly crafted slice of period drama, that movingly demonstrates the hypocrisy of Victorian values. Wilde is celebrated by the public, despite the open secret of his and Bosie’s relationship, while rent boys (including a one-line appearance from Orlando Bloom!) and discrete gay relationships are common place. Wilde is a gentle, naïve man for whom emotional closeness is more important than physical love. He charms a society only too aware of his nature. However, the instant he causes a stink, his reputation is ruined and his life collapses. What the film does so well is give us a sense of the inner vulnerability, doubt and desire for affection at the heart of a man who, perhaps more than any other, lived his life as a public exhibition.

Halliwell’s Film Guide claimed the film attempted to reposition Wilde as a family man, a grossly unfair view of the film’s stance. As if a man who discovers he is gay could not love his children, or that he could no longer care for his wife. Similarly, accusations that the film shows Wilde’s homosexuality as the roots of his downfall are similarly misguided – Robbie Ross is unaffected by legal troubles and he’s openly gay. No, the film is making a far more conventional (in a way) point – Wilde was brought low because he fell hopelessly in love with the wrong guy.

Jude Law’s big break was in this film – and watching it again is a reminder of what a firebrand, dynamic actor he can be. He makes Bosie half monster, half emotionally vulnerable child. He alternates (sometimes within the same scene) between affection, devotion, kindness and wildly petulant rage. He’s overwhelmingly selfish and self-obsessed – even as Wilde’s life collapses, he can only whine that he is furious his father is winning – but then remorseful and guilt-stricken when the consequences of his actions become clear (but not enough to not do it again). Law juggles all these contradictions with astonishing skill – it’s an assured, magnetic performance of brilliance. We can see why Wilde adores him, while at the same time wanting to wring his neck.

It’s also clear why all the other characters around Wilde find him so appalling. Ross (and Sheen is similarly superb as Wilde’s tragically “friend-zoned” devoted admirer) can’t bear the appalling influence Bosie has, but knows he’s powerless to do anything about it. In one great scene, Bosie haughtily says he knows Ross always hated him, before cruelly saying it’s because Wilde loved Bosie, but Ross was only “one of his boys” – the look of pain on Sheen’s face is brilliantly moving. Wilde himself seems almost sadly (if inevitably) drawn into Bosie’s tastes for casual sex and rough trade – often playing voyeur at these events, while sadly accepting Bosie doesn’t find him physically attractive. Wilde’s basically the victim of an abusive relationship – and the film does a brilliant job of demonstrating why a man otherwise so blessed with intelligence can’t see it.

Julian Mitchell’s excellent screenplay (based on Richard Ellman’s award-winning biography) uses Wilde’s The Selfish Giant as a framing device – subtly comparing Wilde and Bosie respectively to the giant and the child. It also brilliantly constructs a sense of Wilde’s quick wit and staggering intelligence, and provides a host of sparkling cameos for some fine character actors. The production design and photography are spot-on, and while Gilbert may be slightly workmanlike in his filming, he certainly lets the story tell itself.

The focus on Wilde’s family life is also reassuringly different – it’s brilliant to see Wilde’s obvious adoration for his children, and plenty of indication that he was actually (much of the time) a very good husband and father. Mitchell’s script softens Constance’s reaction to Wilde’s conviction (she wasn’t as forgiving and forward-thinking in her views as she seems to be here) but it does mean that we are allowed to see the full story of Wilde’s life, rather than having him defined by his sexuality. Jennifer Ehle also does a marvellous job with very little material, and her quiet dignity and support for her husband (despite her anger at his obsession with Bosie) is very affecting.

But at the centre of all this is that perfect casting of Stephen Fry. In all the rest of his career, Fry will never be better than he is here. His Wilde is intellectual, mildly arrogant, but also naïve, gentle and almost unworldly. His voice is perfect for the aphorisms, and he is really striking physically. Above all though, he brings a deep, emotional empathy to the part – you feel how personal this is for Fry the actor, and you feel how closely he identifies with a man who discovered his sexuality late. His besotted, blind love for Bosie is as affecting as it is frustrating. His vulnerability in Reading gaol is deeply moving. It’s a quite marvellous performance, anchoring a movie that is gentle, kindly, caring and sensitive in exploring the inner life of a very public man.