This was an incredibly boring movie. Also, kind of gross/sad if you think about it too long.Nelly (Felicity Jones) is a budding actress when she catches the eye of established and famous author Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes). They have a few interactions but their relationship is hampered by Dickens' fame and his being married to Catherine (Joanna Scanlan) and having six children with her. Undaunted by what he perceives as a loveless and unfulfilling union, Dickens approaches Nelly's mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) with a proposition to take Nelly as his mistress.
The film is told through a series of flashbacks from Nelly in her present as a respectable, if severe, married woman and Nelly of the past, a young ingénue forced to conform to a shameful relationship to secure her family's fortune. She has a hero worship of Dickens but didn't come across (at least, to me) as having any real romantic feelings.
Charles Dickens is definitely the villain of this film, blithely ignoring social conventions no matter the cost to the women in his life. It's a very flat portrayal and Fiennes isn't given a lot of opportunity to imbue any nuance. Jones does what she can but for me, the stand-out here is Joanna Scanlan. That woman was beautifully subtle and makes the absolute most out of her limited screen time.
I wouldn't recommend this to any but the most adamant of classical literature fans.
No comments:
Post a Comment