The Invisible Woman (15.)
Directed by Ralph Fiennes.
Starring Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Kristen Scott-Thomas, Joanna Scanlon and Tom Hollander. 111 mins
Being a British film, and a BBC movie to boot, it’s a given that the title character isn’t going to be a sexy young lady who develops a marvellous secret power after an inadvertent burst of radiation. No this invisible lady is Nelly (Jones), Charles Dickens’s secret young lover. At the height of his fame Dickens became entangled romantically with a woman less than half his age, a pretty but not particularly gifted actress; but only after his wife had concluded her breeding, piled on the pounds and renounced all future interest in physical intimacy.
Almost all British costume dramas are to some extent tugs of war between boredom and quality, but rarely have the two sides been so evenly matched and so ferociously buffed up. I was frequently awed by the quality of what was on screen while trying to sneak a look at the watch to see how much longer it was on for, (and the answer was always a little bit more than seemed reasonable.)
Commenting on the quality of the acting and photography is largely redundant in this kind of film, but there is a genuine spark to the quality here; it enlivens rather than deadens the drama. Fiennes has been a name film actor for two decades, but his performance as Dickens seems remarkably fresh. Felicity Jones is a real film performer, as enthralling and compelling when inactive as when she is delivering her lines.
It may also be the case that Fiennes’s skills as a director are close to those as an actor. His debut Coriolanus was imaginative and he does sparkling job on a small budget with his second feature. In the past decade it has usually been the aim to make costume dramas that feel alive and contemporary, but few have made the past seem as immediate as this film.
But where does it all get you? Abi Morgan’s script makes its allusions to the modern cult of celebrity and the sexual hypocrisy of supposedly enlightened men, but it feels like its scratching around looking for any little scraps with which to fashion another Dickens film from. It’s yet another spin on the Heritage Britain roundabout, the one which takes you to Dickens and then Shakespeare and then Austen and then Dickens again.
Directed by Ralph Fiennes.
Starring Ralph Fiennes, Felicity Jones, Kristen Scott-Thomas, Joanna Scanlon and Tom Hollander. 111 mins
Being a British film, and a BBC movie to boot, it’s a given that the title character isn’t going to be a sexy young lady who develops a marvellous secret power after an inadvertent burst of radiation. No this invisible lady is Nelly (Jones), Charles Dickens’s secret young lover. At the height of his fame Dickens became entangled romantically with a woman less than half his age, a pretty but not particularly gifted actress; but only after his wife had concluded her breeding, piled on the pounds and renounced all future interest in physical intimacy.
Almost all British costume dramas are to some extent tugs of war between boredom and quality, but rarely have the two sides been so evenly matched and so ferociously buffed up. I was frequently awed by the quality of what was on screen while trying to sneak a look at the watch to see how much longer it was on for, (and the answer was always a little bit more than seemed reasonable.)
Commenting on the quality of the acting and photography is largely redundant in this kind of film, but there is a genuine spark to the quality here; it enlivens rather than deadens the drama. Fiennes has been a name film actor for two decades, but his performance as Dickens seems remarkably fresh. Felicity Jones is a real film performer, as enthralling and compelling when inactive as when she is delivering her lines.
It may also be the case that Fiennes’s skills as a director are close to those as an actor. His debut Coriolanus was imaginative and he does sparkling job on a small budget with his second feature. In the past decade it has usually been the aim to make costume dramas that feel alive and contemporary, but few have made the past seem as immediate as this film.
But where does it all get you? Abi Morgan’s script makes its allusions to the modern cult of celebrity and the sexual hypocrisy of supposedly enlightened men, but it feels like its scratching around looking for any little scraps with which to fashion another Dickens film from. It’s yet another spin on the Heritage Britain roundabout, the one which takes you to Dickens and then Shakespeare and then Austen and then Dickens again.
