Bea says:
Sunday was Mother's Day in Australia, and on this rare occasion, I have my mother and sister here with me in London. So on Sunday I took them both up to the Apollo Cinema in Piccadilly, and we saw The Young Victoria, as a Mother's Day treat. Regular readers will know that I love a historical costume drama, as does my mother, and we both loved this. My sister is made of less sentimental stuff, but even she was won over. I'd had reservations about this film - it has had almost unanimously poor reviews, but after seeing it, I think entirely undeservedly. It documents Victoria's life in detail shortly prior to her coronation, and for about four years after, including her relationship with Albert, and Lord Melbourne. I knew little about this time in her life, and she made an interesting and spirited heroine, and was very well played. Rupert Friend also performed well as Albert. The film was gripping - afterwards over a coffee we all commented on how quickly the time had passed in the cinema.
However what I appreciated the most was not the telling of the story of Victoria's early years on the throne, but the carefully rounded characterisation of all the key characters - the many complexities and flaws of human nature were well drawn, as were the complications and also the endurance of family ties and other close relationships. Victoria's relationship with her mother, her nurse/governess, Albert, and Lord Melbourne all made for fascinating viewing as these relationships changed, grew, developed, became closer or more distant as the years went on. No character was completely likable, none completely unlikable.
A film with much unappreciated depth. I am glad I saw it.
***
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Cheri
Cecil says: A glitzy premiere, with red carpets, flashing cameras and gorgeous lead actors. What could go wrong with such an occasion? Well, the first odd thing is that, for a film being premiered at the Institut Francais, based on a novel by Colette and set in Paris, there was a complete absence of French, through the whole evening. Not a word of French on the screen; not a word in French during the Q&A afterwards. The director, Stephen Frears, even confessed that he doesn't speak a word of the language; and the writer, Christopher Hampton, made the strange remark that he had started out with the idea of writing a biopic on Colette herself. So, how and why did he then embark on a screenplay of one of her novels instead? We never found out, but perhaps that is at the root of a sense of emptiness that runs through the film.
Sure, the characters are in a sense empty shells themselves: Michelle Pfeifer, the ageing (at 32!) courtesan determined not to fall in love with Rupert Friend, the young dandy, seven years her junior, who plays at love but gets himself paired off in an arranged marriage. And the whole story is set at the end of the 'Belle Epoque', with a sense of an era drawing to a close and running out of steam. Maybe it's meant to come across as sterile and fading, but it's very hard to engage with characters who have no real...character! Rupert Friend himself said in the Q&A how hard it had been to play the role of such a passive male; of how he had struggled to get any sense of the person he was supposed to be portraying.
Michelle Pfeifer is the best thing about this film, though. Not only her personality, which dominates proceedings through the plot, but her presence on the screen; her diction is perfect and is the one reason why I'm glad the film was in English rather than French - I could listen to her for hours and sit transfixed. But it's a shame Bea wasn't able to join me this time: it's the sort of film where you get the impression a male and female perspective on it would be bound to be different; not necessarily contradicting, but somehow complementary, and it makes my views on the film seem somehow incomplete.
I didn't particularly enjoy the film, but was it, in the words of one viewer I overheard afterwards, really "a film for women"? Without Bea being there, I'll never know...All I can say is that I would like to read the book now, to see how far Frears/Hampton kept to the heart of the story.
I can't end this entry without a comment on the audience again (I know, we are becoming as much people-watchers as film viewers these days). It was fascinating to see the cameras flashing desperately as soon as the young English actress arrived at the Institut. I'm afraid I can't even remember her name and her role is a bit-part compared to Pfeiffer, but the adulation via the lens gave the impression she must be THE star of the movie; I loved the gooey-eyed and adoring cluster of young women who interviewed Rupert Friend ahead of the screening: they were hanging on his every word, but was it his looks or what he had to say? does it matter, if you adore someone that much?
And finally, what is it about the film industry that seems to attract men in the 60s with long hair and wearing black shirts. Now, those of you who know how little hair I have might put this down to jealousy, but black shirts??? Come on!
**.5
Sure, the characters are in a sense empty shells themselves: Michelle Pfeifer, the ageing (at 32!) courtesan determined not to fall in love with Rupert Friend, the young dandy, seven years her junior, who plays at love but gets himself paired off in an arranged marriage. And the whole story is set at the end of the 'Belle Epoque', with a sense of an era drawing to a close and running out of steam. Maybe it's meant to come across as sterile and fading, but it's very hard to engage with characters who have no real...character! Rupert Friend himself said in the Q&A how hard it had been to play the role of such a passive male; of how he had struggled to get any sense of the person he was supposed to be portraying.
Michelle Pfeifer is the best thing about this film, though. Not only her personality, which dominates proceedings through the plot, but her presence on the screen; her diction is perfect and is the one reason why I'm glad the film was in English rather than French - I could listen to her for hours and sit transfixed. But it's a shame Bea wasn't able to join me this time: it's the sort of film where you get the impression a male and female perspective on it would be bound to be different; not necessarily contradicting, but somehow complementary, and it makes my views on the film seem somehow incomplete.
I didn't particularly enjoy the film, but was it, in the words of one viewer I overheard afterwards, really "a film for women"? Without Bea being there, I'll never know...All I can say is that I would like to read the book now, to see how far Frears/Hampton kept to the heart of the story.
I can't end this entry without a comment on the audience again (I know, we are becoming as much people-watchers as film viewers these days). It was fascinating to see the cameras flashing desperately as soon as the young English actress arrived at the Institut. I'm afraid I can't even remember her name and her role is a bit-part compared to Pfeiffer, but the adulation via the lens gave the impression she must be THE star of the movie; I loved the gooey-eyed and adoring cluster of young women who interviewed Rupert Friend ahead of the screening: they were hanging on his every word, but was it his looks or what he had to say? does it matter, if you adore someone that much?
And finally, what is it about the film industry that seems to attract men in the 60s with long hair and wearing black shirts. Now, those of you who know how little hair I have might put this down to jealousy, but black shirts??? Come on!
**.5
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