The Governess
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Movie Reviews of The Governess
Movie Review: enchanting
Summary: 5 Stars
Absolutely gorgeous, I loved everything about this film. The actors were great the colours were crisp and it certainly held my attention from start to finish. Loved it...Movie Review: Minnie Driver provides a captivating and erotic performance
Summary: 4 Stars
I have to admit I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of Minnie Driver playing a young Jewish girl in 19th century England who passes herself off as a Christian to obtain a position as a governess to a family on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. She just sounds too "modern" to me for any character she plays to really feel at home for me in a period costume drama. That being said, Driver's performance in "The Governess" is nonetheless compelling and one of the more erotic that I have seen recently, and that surprising development is what you will remember more from this film than anything else.
Driver is Rosina da Silva, the eldest daughter of a well-to-do family in the Sephardic Jewish community in London. Instead of dreaming of being married, Rosie longs to be an actress, inspired by her aunt, who sings on the stage. But then her father is murdered and the family is faced with a mountain of debts. Faced with the prospect of being married to a rich older man, Rosie places an advertisement in the papers claiming to be a proper young Christian woman, named Mary Blackchurch, looking for suitable employment as a governess. So she finds herself being transported to the wilds of Scotland, where the green seems to go on forever, pretending to be a Gentile gentlewoman.
"Mary" is employed by the Cavandishes to take care of their young daughter Clementina (Florence Hoath), who has to be threatened into obedience before a bond can form between them. Mrs. Cavendish (Harriet Walter) has a lemon where no one should have a lemon and dreams of the pleasures of London; the only problem is that she has never been there. Mr. Cavendish (Tom Wilkinson) spends all of his time working in his laboratory on something he thinks is too complicated by the delicate minds of women. But whereas his wife is clearly beyond understanding anything from the realm of science, the new governess shows not only understanding but interest and aptitude. There's is a meeting of the minds and then other parts of the body get involved as well.
A complication to their private idles is Clementina's older brother, Henry (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), who becomes infatuated by the young governess and never thinks that his own father is a rival for her affections. However, "Mary" wants a man and not a boy and while he would rather photograph his specimens she convinces him to photograph her as well. Thinking of the ancient Hebrews who made love while covered, she drapes a diaphanous cloth over herself in what becomes the basis for a series of subtly erotic photographs. Eventually, she will take some photographs of him as well. More importantly, she will help him solve the problem of fixing an image so that they do not fade.
Photography is a key part of this story and the gulf that divides the two lovers is defined more by their diametrically opposed approaches to the camera than by the differences in their genders and religion. He sees photography as simply a tool to help him make a scientific record of reality, while she takes the artistic view that it is an opportunity "to capture the essence of people and to fix a memory." Ultimately the meeting of the minds and bodies proves too much for Cavendish, who fears her superior intellect even more than he is shamed by her passionate nature. Rosie will not find happiness here, but she will learn what happiness will mean for her in the rest of her life.
Written and Directed by Sandra Goldbacher this 1998 film does make Rosie's Jewishness a key part of her character. Because he mother is Italian she has a convenient excuse for her olive complexion and can honestly say that she is not Catholic. She continues to practice her faith in private, although the Cavendishes are patently incapable of recognizing any of the trappings of her faith. Of course, if Cavendish knew that his lover was a Jewess he would no doubt be repulsed. But he is captivated by her eroticism, which Driver creates for Rosie. The great lesson here is being erotic is not how you look, but rather how you act, and in "The Governess" Minnie Driver proves she knows how to act.
Movie Review: lotta plot(s), but lovely picture(s)
Summary: 4 Stars
The plots: sexual tension between a governess and her employer, tension of a woman in a foreign place, and all along the struggle to make pictures....Mary, to the world, is a governess working in a Protestant house in Scotland. But Jane Eyre she isn't-she puts away her dreams of acting after the death of her father forces her to bring in a family income-all in the while she conceals that she is Rosina, a Jewess pretending to be of Italian descent. It is no lie when she reassures the lady of the house she isn't Catholic.
Her new surroundings are more than dyfunctional. The character of the bored mother is unoccupied and perched in a gilded but bland cage, propped up and seated in nearly every scene like she's dead and posed "in state." Her husband, Cavendish, hides away with his mysterious science studies and the daughter(Rosina/"Mary's" charge) whose responds to boredom (and a lack of attention) differently than her mother by playing pranks on her new governess. The son, a decade older and recently expelled from school, is a product of this same boredom, grown but immature as his sister and decidedly perverse.
After a prank by the daughter, the governess quickly lets her student know who's boss, and the student becomes more submissive. But their bonding lessens as Rosina's becomes curious about the father, who becomes equally curious about her. She pays less attention to her student and more to her employer, who, impressed with her knowledge and curiosty (he has no anger after she sneaks into his archaic photo laboratory) she eventually becomes his assistant. All in the while Rosina's dead father visits her in her dreams and memories-until Cavendish replaces her father in dreams and the two have an inevitable affair.
Then there is second plot is Rosina, a Jew of Spanish/Portuguese decent, who feels akward in a gentile setting. She isn't used to the foreign food (she and her sister once believed semolina to be semen) and artifacts. While it's funny to watch her pick up a crucifix for the first time, look at it, then toss it to the side, it's sad to watch her eat passover alone, in secret. She remembers her father and passover as a child as she eats an egg in salt water-which spills on a nearby photo. This is the breakthrough to getting a picture developed, literally, the third plot, Rosina and Cavendish learning the process of photogaphy,outside the sexual tension.
Though both are student to discovering the scientific process, it is only Rosina who is willing to take it a step further, photography as an art. The art/science photography is the undoing of their little situation, the business and pleasure. The final straw is Cavendish revealing his new process and not sharing the credit for it-he was still bitter about her secret pictures of him, nude, as he forbade.
So, Rosina, endowed with a new ability to make an income, decides it's unnecessary to hide her true identity or stay in the employ of a man who betrayed her. She leaves the family in style: on the way out the door she hands bored Mrs. Cavendish what the housewife always sat yearning for, a piece of "culture"-her husband's nude portrait.
That's just a few plot circles and it does feel like a long film at times. Rosina and Cavendish have a strange sexual tension, an attraction to each other (if not a lack of screen chemistry) that both characters seem almost surpised at. The younger Cavendish is an imp, hardly in the film (it's like he's purpose is to barely pop out from the background), and I wish he and Rosina had more screen time. Overall, it's a gorgous period film and the colorful setting of the Sephardic Jewish London is so welcome after a string of movies set in what feels like the same 19th century, Pre-Dickinson-Pre-Industrial rural 'scape. The Austin/Eliot/Brontes have their merits, and I am a fan of Sense and Sensibilty (Emma Thompson's), but I think Hollywood should keep taking us to new places, like in this lovely film.
Movie Review: LAVISH CINEMATOGRAPHY...INTRIGUING PERIOD DRAMA...
Summary: 4 Stars
Set in mid nineteenth century England and Scotland, this is a lush and beautifully shot film that those who love period pieces should very much enjoy. This one is a little unusual in that the storyline revolves around a Sephardic Jewess, Rosalina Da Silva, who lives in London with her family. When her father dies most unexpectedly, the family suffers a reversal of fortune, and Rosalina must either marry or work in order to be able to assist her family financially. A passionate, intelligent, and earthy woman for her time, Rosalina opts to work, rather than marry the unattractive, older fish merchant who comes a courting.
Looking forward to adventure and a change of scenery, she obtains employment as a governess to the Protestant, upper crust Cavendish family on the remote Isle of Skye in Scotland. She obtains the position under the assumed name "Mary Black-Church" in order to avoid anti-semitism. Shortly after her arrival, she meets the lady of the house, a vapid, bored, and totally uninteresting woman, as well as her charge, a spoiled young girl, whom "Mary" quickly sets to right.
The man of the house, Charles Cavendish, is an educated, seemingly middle aged man, introspective and remote, engaged in perfecting the process involved in that of early photography, a project in which his wife is clearly uninterested. "Mary", inquisitive and freed of her familial constraints, becomes interested in his work, much to Mr. Cavendish's surprise and ultimate delight. While he only photographs inanimate objects, "Mary" is much more intrigued by the idea of capturing a living likeness, an interest in which Charles Cavendish neither shares nor comprehends. Initially drawn to "Mary" by her seeming interest in his project, a spark ignites between them, and they begin a quite torrid and passionate affair which "Mary" overtly invites.
The affair comes crashing down when "Mary" takes some nude shots of Charles while he is sleeping. Caught in so vulnerable and compromising a position, Charles abruptly ends the affair, much to "Mary's" torment and despair. "Mary" retaliates in a big way, sending the household rocking, by having an affair with Charles' son, Harry, and, ultimately, by giving the wife her very own set of photographs of her husband. Never underestimate the fury of a woman scorned!
"Mary" returns to London and her home, resuming her own identity. What she does with her newly acquired skill in photography is sure to delight feminists everywhere. As to what Charles Cavensish eventually does about "Mary", watch the movie and see who has the last laugh.
Minnie Driver gives a wonderful portrayal as the spirited Rosalina Da Silva, while Tom Wilkinson gives a fine performance as the dour Charles Cavendish, a man caught in a web of his own making. The love scenes between the two, however, at times do not quite work, almost as if there were no chemistry between the two. Perhaps it is because "Mary" initiates the affair, and it is somewhat unexpected and jarring to have her do so. Yet, at other times the love scenes are positively sensual and consummately erotic...especially the veil scene.
Harriet Walters does justice to her role as the insipid Mrs. Cavendish. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers gives an affecting perfomance as Harry, the coltish, hunky son. Florence Hoath rounds out this excellent cast, as the young girl for whom "Mary" was hired. All in all, this is an unusual and interesting film. While the story may occasionally seem a little disjointed, it is still a compelling period drama and well worth watching.
Movie Review: Romantics always wake up in the end.
Summary: 4 Stars
There is much that can be said about this film. It is one of those films that can stimulate much discussion since everyone probably comes away from the film with a vast range of opinions and impressions about what they have seen. The film is told from a Jewish perspective which makes it unique for a film about the English and Scottish in the early 19th century at the frontier days of photography.
Minnie Driver is never more beautiful or in full control of her acting abilities as she is in this film. The still photography of her nude is beautiful. This is the film that defines her as an actress. She demonstrates that she can carry an entire production, appearing in almost every scene, and yet always engaging the audience with her well delivered performance.
The artistic direction and costumes are super, with a tendency to favor the color black in interiors, carriages, clothing, and furniture. The films inside a Jewish home begin the film.
The film has a menacing, foreboding, uneasy feel about it. This in enhanced by the barren shores on the Isle of Skye, the bleak and drafty laboratory of Charles Cavendish, and the almost creepy manner in which the entire Cavendish family interacts. Mrs. Cavendish is spooky. Minnie plays a very young extremely romantic and impressionable Jewish woman who tries to pass as an Italian protestant to obtain a governess position for a wealthy Scottish family. Minnie plays Rosina de Silva who must change her name to Mary Blackchurch to hide her ethnicity. Her student is the young Cavendish daughter, played well by Florence Hoath. Hoath plays this dreadfully morbid child perfectly and offers some of the light moments of humor in the film. Yet even this child makes up puppet plays about murder and exposure to the elements, or reads bloody dreadful fairy stories. While Rosina falls for Mr. Cavendish, his college freshman son falls for Rosina. Henry Cavendish is played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who does an excellent job of playing the willful lustful reckless young love puppy, who oddly mirrors Rosina's lust for his father through his obsession with her.
Rosina is full of passion and this becomes directed toward Mr. Cavendish, a man 20 years her senior. They become lovers, he wracked with misgivings and guilt, she intoxicated by passion and blind to consequences. It is Charles Cavendish's uneasy approach to the affair that gives the film its narrative tone. He keeps saying that they are making a mistake and the film continually conveys this message with each frame. He moves toward Rosina and then away, his wisdom telling him to be very careful with his emotions.
Is there subtext in this film? Yes, I think so. To some degree the film can be seen as what happens when a young overly romantic attractive young women is placed in a situation where her natural passions are easily misdirected to an older married man. Yet there is also a subtext that painful things happen to Jewish folks who become romantically involved with Gentile folks. The film is unique in that it is told through Jewish perspectives rather than the typical Anglo-centric productions, of which there are many. This perspective is interesting and unique.