The Woman in White
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Movie Reviews of The Woman in White
Movie Review: Minimalist adaptation of Wilkie Collins classic
Summary: 3 Stars
Some of you may not have heard of Wilkie Collins. He was a great friend of Charles Dickens. "Women in White" is a novel that was written for Dickens' literary magazine and appeared in serialization about the same time that "A Tale of Two Cities" was also being published.
The novel itself is 720 pages long and has (if memory serves from fifth grade reading) five narrators. This film treatment resolves on a single narrator, Marian Fairlie (Fitzgerald) the half poor sister of Laura, who got all the money.
The story opens with Walter Hartright (Lincoln) coming to the Fairlie estates to be an art tutor for the girls. He falls in love with Laura, but this love cannot be. Laura is engaged to wed another, Sir Percival Glyde.
He also encounters a mysterious woman in white out on the moonlit lawn. Anne Catherick (Vidler) is the daughter of a servant who became insane and was generously hospitalized by Sir Percival.
After Laura is wed, Marian is to come live with them. She arrives after the honeymoon and discovers her sister is badly abused and traumatized. Sir Percival is clearly out to get Laura's money with the help of his Italian cousin, Count Fosco (Callow).
The sisters plan an escape by moonlight. Unfortunately, the escape fails and Marian awakens from a fever to learn her sister Laura jumped from the tower of Glyde's estate.
She doesn't believe in the suicide and vowing vengeance, she contacts Hartright and they search for the truth. They must find the will of their father, which apparently will answer all of their questions.
Most people who read will say they liked the book better than the film. With a few very notable exceptions, this is true in my case as well. In all fairness to the film's creators, it would be very difficult to collapse the original Wilkie novel into a movie length version. Their interpretation is interesting, but yes lacking.
I do like both, actually, though the movie a good deal less than the original Wilkie masterwork (which was his personal favorite of his works as well). My one issue with the film is it didn't create the environment the book did. The book was much stronger and more evocative landscape.
Still, Tara Fitzgerald is to be commended for telling Marian's tale and managing to convey so much of the depth of the story on such a narrow perspective. SHe truly is an amazingly talented actress. The film's well worth watching just for her and Lincoln's performances.
Rebecca Kyle, September 2008
Movie Review: The WRONG WOMAN IN WHITE
Summary: 3 Stars
I HAVE NOT SEEN THIS VERSION, SO
I DO NOT KNOW IF IT'S GOOD OR NOT.
SOME PEOPLE MENTION BBC PRODUCTION.
THE ONLY VERSION I'VE SEEN IS THE ONE
WITH ALEXIS SMITH, ELANOR POWELL, SIDNEY
GREENSTREET. I CAN'T FIND THIS VERSION ANYWHERE.
TOO BAD BECAUSE IT'S ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES
I'VE EVER SEEN. DATED BUT EXTREMELY ENTERTAINING.
Movie Review: inferior quality
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased this video recently and although it arrived quickly and was well packaged, the video is of poor quality. The picture on the front is ot clear and crisp. The movie itself has an inferior look to it. The people within the scenes are rather unclear.Movie Review: pietrp 2
Summary: 2 Stars
A low rate because of the lack of the subtitles who helps to undestand foreign people not so accustomed with spoken englishMovie Review: A Terrible Adaptation of a Great Novel
Summary: 1 Stars
I want to begin this review with the fact that I love Wilkie Collins' work. He was a great writer, and The Woman in White remains, in my opinion, his best work, as well as my own personal favorite. It is a great book with a thrilling story and great characters, and what more do you need in a novel?
The movie, on the other hand, isn't so good.
From the very first scene you get the feeling that the rest of the movie is going to be dark and depressing. The writers left the book by the wayside when they wrote this script, and it bears no resemblance to the source material aside from the fact that there is a woman in it and that she's dressed in white.
Collins' book focused on an everyday setting with everyday people dragged into an unusual circumstance: A young man engaged as a drawing teacher to two sisters meets a strange woman, all in white, on the road to their house. She tells him of a secret she has, but runs fom him before she reveals it to him. He falls in love with one of the sisters, who looks exactly like the woman, and is separated from her by discovering that she is already engaged to a man of high rank. It is a classic story, but Collins mixes in some detective fiction, suspense, mystery, and romance with colorful foreigners, secret societies, mistaken identities, long-hidden secrets, and criminal activities to make it into something uniquely his own. Two of the 19th century's finest literary characters were created fro this novel: Marion Halcombe, considered the first female detective, and Count Fosco, the "Napoleon of Crime", one of the most delicious characters ever put on paper. The scenes of daily life are portrayed vividly and with such realism, and are a welcome respite away from the pace and suspense at the main thread. Nothing of this is present in this movie.
Too many liberties were taken to my liking. For one thing, the Woman in White (Anne Catherick) and Laura Fairlie are both supposed to be blondes. In this, they both have drab brown hair. It's hard to tell Laura from Anne from Marian (Laura's half-sister), and this is made even more confusing when the relationship of the sisters is changed (in the book Laura and Marian are only half-sisters; here they are just sisters), and they are both called Ms. Fairlie. The actress playing Anne is just too deranged for me. She acts so weird that it's difficult to feel any pity for her. I couldn't stand to look at her for more than a few seconds. Actually, compared with the other actors, she seems sort of normal. They all act rather strangely, and seem uncomforable in their roles.
No one looks at all like they are supposed to. For instance, why is the actor playing Count Fosco, who is supposed to be a rotund, robust Italian, just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, avarage-sized Englishman, with no Italian in him at all? Marian has a complete character change; she is brutal and ruthless, and does not leave you rooting for her at all. Walter, the drawing-master, is portrayed as a slovenly profligate, which is nothing like the kindly and gentlemanly young man that he is in the book. The man who plays Sir Percival Glyde, the man Laura is engaged to, is much too old and boring for the part, and is hardly ever seen here, even though he is the primary heart of the Secret in which all of the characters are tied up with.
The overall feeling of the film is disturbing and unsettling, focusing more on a horror genre, nothing of which was present in the book, rather than a mystery or a semi-supernatural thriller. There are no breaks or breathers, and despite the fast pace, hardly anything happens during the course if the two-hour film, especially in comparison with the book, which had a lot to offer. I found myself getting extremely bored and wondering when it was finally going to end.
The incidents elaborated on or added (to no improvement to the storyline) are either cut too short or overstretched, and make you want to scream and ask yourself WHY they decided to make such drastic changes like that to the story when there was absolutely no need for them. My belief has always been that if it isn't broke, don't fix it, a maxim these filmakers obviously didn't listen to.
If I was bored to death earlier, I simply apalled by the events leading to and the eventual discovery of the Secret, which has been changed substancially from the way Collins wrote it. The scene in the vestry is unexciting yet at the same time unbearable to watch. I was disgusted with the utter cruelty and inhumanity in which the characters conduct themselves, and find that it is too stressful to be borne as entertainment.
Strange camera angles, over-eerie music, drastic story changes/additions, improper casting, and bad acting all add up to one film you should not waste your time or money on.
Take my advice: If you like the book and want to see (or rather hear it) reverently portrayed and well-acted, consider investing in the fantastic 2-CD set of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of The Woman in White. It captures the atmosphere and excitement of the novel, while making some appropriate improvements to the story and characters while not altering anything for the worse. You can't miss Michael Crawford's charmingly sinister Count Fosco. I've reread the book several times and can't picture anyone but the amazing cast of that show as the characters described. Just don't ruin your love and vision of Wilkie Collin's masterpiece first with this waste of a movie.