Ralph Fiennes – Bitch Flicks

Notes from the Telluride Film Festival: Reviews of ‘The Invisible Woman’ and ‘Gravity’

Usually movies with such mainstream blockbuster potential are not portrayed at Telluride Film Festival. Telluride opts for more artistic limited release movies. But I suspect Cuaron’s credibility, including casting a woman in the lead over Clooney, made it a Telluride film.

Still from The Invisible Woman — Still from *The Invisible Woman*

This is a guest post by Atima Omara-Alwala.

The Woman Behind Charles Dickens: A Review of the Film The Invisible Woman

“You men live your lives, while we are left behind. I see no freedom where I stand!” yells protagonist Ellen Ternan at a Dickens’ colleague.

Ternan is the mistress of renowned English novelist Charles Dickens. And that sums up the movie The Invisible Woman. Ternan became the 18-year-old mistress to then 45-year-old Charles Dickens, who was at the height of his fame. Based on the novel of the same name, it accounts their life together, the scandal it caused, as Dickens was still married to his wife. While the film is meant to be focused on this torrid affair between Dickens and Ternan it, by extension, is a telling of the unfortunate status of women in the Victorian era.

English actor Ralph Fiennes, a celebrated actor of his generation (Schindler’s List, Quiz Show, The English Patient, The End of the Affair, to name a few) plays the larger than life Charles Dickens and Felicity Jones plays Ellen Ternan. Invisible Woman is the second film Fiennes directed after Coriolanus.

The Invisible Woman is sumptuous in its costumes and details of the Victorian era, but occasionally lacks in the chain that builds up to the affair. Ternan, whose family of moderately successful actors are good friends of Dickens, finds herself in his company due to a play he is building. You instantly see why Dickens falls for Ternan–she is young, spirited, and passionate about his novels and short stories. Jones’ Ternan does a good job in not overdoing the “fan girl” role, as that can cross over to creepy rather quickly. Her love and understanding of his books touches Fiennes’ Dickens perhaps because his wife doesn’t seem that invested in his work and Ellen is rather young and pretty. One also suspects her adoration soothes his ego. Chats of his works turn to meaningful conversations of life ,which pale in comparison to the awkward stilted and physically passionless relationship that exists between Dickens and his wife, Catherine.

Felicity Jones in The Invisible Woman — Felicity Jones in *The Invisible Woman*

Ternan finds herself at a crossroads in her relationship with Dickens, as her family realizes his adoration of her and her growing affection for him. While she hopes to become an actress, it is made clear to her by the women in her family that she is not good enough to survive in the profession. Since she has not too much formal educational training, any money to inherit, or other marital prospects, the best she can hope for is a relationship with Dickens, who cannot divorce his wife in Victoria era England. But can provide for Ternan. It is not a “choice” that thrills her, especially as she views Dickens’ callousness toward his wife–which includes but is NOT limited to a public letter in the London Times announcing he and his wife (unbeknownst to his wife) have agreed to separate (worse than texting your ex you’re through with them) and forcing his wife to deliver a gift meant for Ternan but accidentally delivered to her so (in Dickens’ mind) the wife can see for herself nothing exists between them.

I personally love Charles Dickens’ writings and thought he was quite the advocate for justice for the poor, but I was stunned at the sheer humiliation he put his wife through. You can imagine Ternan’s thoughts: if he’s that callous to the women who bore TEN of his children, how the hell is he going to treat me?

My biggest complaint was, while I saw a chemistry between Fiennes and Jones, the buildup was not always potent enough for me to think this was supposed to be the renowned passionate affair it apparently was. The timeline was fuzzy at times. Fiennes is outstanding per usual as the larger than life author, and Jones is an ingénue with promise who perhaps reached her limits in playing an older and wiser Ternan after Dickens’ passing, trapped in reflection and struggling to free herself from his ghost. Either way, go see it, if for nothing else to no more about this author and see another outstanding Ralph Fiennes performance.

Movie poster for Gravity — Movie poster for *Gravity*

A Brilliant Woman Hero: A Review of the Film Gravity

If you ever doubted a woman could literally reach for the stars, Sandra Bullock changes your mind in her performance as Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant astronaut who becomes a hero in Gravity. The film is directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed A Little Princess (1995), Y Tu Mamá También (2001), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). Gravity is a 3D movie with George Clooney as Bullock’s co star. Clooney plays fellow astronaut, Matt Kowalsky.

Dr. Stone and Kowalsky, along with others, are in space on a mission when debris from a satellite crashes into their space shuttle Explorer, killing most of their crew. Dr. Stone and Kowalsky (on limited oxygen) must find a way to survive.

Sandra Bullock in Gravity — Sandra Bullock in *Gravity*

Bullock is wonderfully nuanced in her role as Dr. Ryan Stone and I can see why reviews coming back from Venice International Film Festival have her touted for another Oscar nomination. Cuaron portrays a complex, brilliant astronaut with a sad past who is driven by her work. With her male colleagues (particularly Clooney’s Kowalsky, whom she interacts the most with), she confidently holds her own in what she does. When the space shuttle is hit, and Dr. Stone–a less experienced astronaut–is sent flying into space in a breathtaking 3D moment, she is rightfully panicked. I worried she might become the damsel in distress that Kowalsky rescues, but Bullock does not take you into unnecessary hysterics. If anything, the 3D movie makes the audience more empathetic to how scary the reality of flying untethered into space is. The rest of the movie is an exercise in her using her mental and physical reserves to brainstorm her way out of hairy situations, while the debris still in orbit rotates back around every so often to threaten her survival. I found myself mentally cheering her on as I think all viewers–especially women–will to the end.

Atima Omara-Alwala is a political strategist and activist of 10 years who has served as staff on eight federal and local political campaigns and other progressive causes. Atima’s work has had a particular focus on women’s political empowerment and leadership, reproductive justice, health care, communities of color and how gender and race is reflected in pop culture. Her writings on the topics have also been featured at Ms. Magazine, Women’s Enews, and RH Reality Check.

The Butler, the Billions, and ‘Bernard and Doris’s Broken Hearts

Movie poster for Bernard and Doris

This is a guest post by Margaret Howie.

But the question, again, is do you ever really want to ever be intimate? If you do, then it might as well be this person. It’s not about gender. It’s not about race, or age, or anything. The hurdle is intimacy. –Susan Sarandon (on Bernard and Doris, from the movie’s official site).

Money changes everything, as noted by deep thinkers from Karl Marx to Cyndi Lauper. The very rich are so interesting because they seem to occupy a different world from us, one where you don’t have to worry about picking up after yourself — you have to worry about the people you’ve hired to pick up after you. Bernard and Doris’ director, Bob Balaban, encountered the dramatic potential of wealth and domesticity when he appeared in 2001’s manor house drama Gosford Park. Balaban’s movie, produced by HBO in 2006, is based on the real life relationship between tobacco heiress Doris Duke (Susan Sarandon) and her gay Irish butler Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes). Balaban and screenwriter Hugh Costello used this scenario to examine two vulnerable people who crossed class and professional boundaries to make a messy, painful, and touching drama.

Duke controversially changed her will near the end of her life in 1993, leaving Lafferty in charge of her enormous estate. After her death he was accused of manipulation, and even murder. But while the script uses some of the facts of Duke and Lafferty’s time together to begin and end the story, it’s not concerned with trying to build a case for or against him. Instead of going the Law & Order route, it affixes a great big disclaimer in the opening credits in order to play with fictional interpretations.

The result is more than a chance to gawk at the excesses and indulgences of a wealthy woman and her lavish property, or speculate as to what exactly happened in Duke’s final days. Thanks in large part to the brilliant performances by Sarandon and Fiennes, it’s an examination of a peculiar combination of people in extraordinary circumstances who develop a deep bond.

Susan Sarandon as multimillionaire Doris Duke

From the priceless opening scene, where Doris spits out an over-chilled cantaloupe and instantly fires a hapless butler without bothering to make eye contact with him, her character’s leadership is established. The rich young socialite seen in the opening credit sequence has grown into an authoritative, frugal, beautifully appointed woman. The film is careful to show early on that there’s nothing simple about having this amount of money to manage. Doris makes her decisions very quickly and very definitively, and if she doesn’t spend much of her leisure time sober, that’s no one’s business but her own.

With her elaborate outfits, fluffy dogs (played by Sarandon’s own pets), and sturdy sexual appetite, Doris could easily be shown following in the snobbish steps of 48 carat ditzes like Goldie Hawn in Overboard or Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night. She’s rich and attractive and probably in need of being taken down a peg or two. But the film chooses to revel in Duke’s powers. She’s shown as dominating the various spheres she occupies: business, artistic, political, celebrity. Even her spiritual quest is done with distinct flair: she moves her newly found Indian guru over to America. Doris’s wealth, control and personality are all wrapped up in the New Jersey mansion she hires meek butler Bernard Lafferty to look after.

Doris may be in the habit of shedding staff like so many overchilled cantaloupes, but Bernard proves himself to have an immense practical and empathic capacity. She’s a smart woman who understands the value of a servant who quickly pays off a nurse she’s recently punched out in a plastic surgery clinic.

Bernard is a nurturer, softly spoken and with an awestruck air whenever he’s around Doris. He soaks up every crumb of her attention and is shown trying on her earrings and scarves, lighting up with the reflected glamour. When one of her business managers pushes Doris to fire him, she incredulously points out that he does embroidery.

Bernard Lafferty (Ralph Fiennes) in an early scene in Bernard and Doris

Under her instruction, he begins to grow more colourful and flamboyant. Like the orchids she nurtures in an immense greenhouse, Bernard blooms with more feminine accessories, brightly coloured shirts, a twinkling diamond earring, longer hair. It’s a sharing of Doris’s personal style, and of her funds that purchase all this glitz. The film shows that all of her relationships are guided by money, and while at first she appears to be in charge of it, it still has the power to unsettle her. In the aftermath of a furious argument with her young lover Ben (Nick Rolfe), she confesses to Bernard that her first husband asked her on their wedding night how much his allowance would be. She lost her infant daughter and her father, the two people she seems to have found unconditional love from, and the rest of the world has offered her only the love that comes with an expense account.

But while Bernard and Doris are brought together by money, they find each other a balm for their loneliness. It’s an imperfect match, as rocky and erratic as any long-term serious relationship. He falls off the wagon and loots her wine cellar. She drives drunk with him in the passenger seat. He sets her against her other advisors and monopolises her healthcare. She derides him for being needy. Neither of them maintains graciousness, for all the wealth that saturates them. This is what’s so effective about the movie–demonstrating the state of love they reach when they do get on. When Doris breaks down over Nick’s betrayal and her only child’s death, Bernard offers her pure acceptance. When his drinking lands him back in rehab, she returns it. It’s this volleying of trust back and forth that the two actors’ brilliant performances make believable.

Doris: “I don’t get it. You don’t fuck me; you don’t steal from me. So what do you want from me?” Bernard: “I want to take care of you, Miss Duke.”

The movie has fun with traditional gender roles and domesticity. Every inch the lady, Doris is also the master of the house. She and Bernard love dressing up in beautiful things, not as mere fripperies but as the accessories of power that stuns grey-suited boardroom members. The climactic scene comes when Bernard, wearing one of her gorgeous ballgowns and jewelry, carries the infirm Doris down for a private birthday dinner. It’s a gleefully camp moment, but also a poignant one.

She knows that he’s achieved his dream of shared intimacy, but over a discussion of her funeral plans, she sharply reinstates her superiority, snapping at him, “I must really be crazy to believe a fucker like you.”

Scenes like this pose the question of how little can be known about a close relationship, even from the inside. At the end of the film, Bernard is still inside the house, now the master. Over his head hangs the question of what really passed between him and his former employer. The hothouse environment where Doris grows orchids provides an example of what could have happened, when extremes of wealth, personality, and needs are pushed together to flourish, and possibly rot. Bernard and Doris explores the ambiguities of intimacy between two imperfect people, where there is no happy ever after, but it’s nothing less than a love story to the end.

Margaret Howie is a London-based bookseller who doesn’t need a butler but wouldn’t mind a wine cellar.

Best Picture Nominee Review Series: The Reader

This is a guest post from Megan Kearns.

When we read books or watch movies, we often do so to feel inspired, educate ourselves or escape our daily lives. We frequently look for stories filled with passion, love, sacrifice, revenge, wit and camaraderie. We don’t usually examine how shame gnaws away at us, unraveling our lives. I had a hard time writing this review for The Reader, which shines a light on shame. The film intrigued me with its compelling acting and moral complexities. But it remains a difficult terrain to navigate. Confronting the sins of the past, the film begs the question: can you ever forgive someone you love for committing horrific crimes? And can you ever forgive yourself for loving them?

Threaded with secrecy and guilt, The Reader weaves a tale that tackles the nebulous boundaries of morality and justice. Based on the best-selling book by Bernard Schlink, it features two of my all-time favorite actors as two tormented souls forever haunted by their past. With a quiet intensity, Kate Winslet gives a subtle Oscar-winning performance as Hanna Schmitz, a brusque yet sensuous woman. A complicated and unsympathetic character, Winslet imbues her not with empathy but with a tinge of humanity. Ralph Fiennes effortlessly plays the relentlessly wounded Michael Berg, full of longing and regret, never able to let anyone into his life or his heart but Hanna. The film unfolds as Michael, the tale’s moral compass, remembers his life in flashbacks as a sensitive love-struck young boy (played perfectly with a charming innocence by David Kross) who gets involved in a steamy and tumultuous affair with an older woman until she abruptly disappears. Initially tormented by her absence, Michael moves on with his life, until Hanna unexpectedly emerges 8 years later, on trial for war crimes.

In 1958 Germany, 15-year-old Michael meets 36-year-old Hanna, a train conductor, when she helps him home after finding him sick in the street. Drawn to each other, the two eventually enter a sexual relationship. They fall into a routine pattern of sex, bathing and books. Hanna requests Michael read aloud to her; the words of Tolstoy, Homer, D.H. Lawrence and Chekov leap to life. The reading becomes an emotional aphrodisiac and a means of connection.

As if shedding layers of clothing, the film attempts to unveil the layers of Hanna’s life. Yet it always feels diaphanous, never fully within one’s grasp. She shrouds herself in secrecy. Michael and ultimately we as the audience are never meant to completely see Hanna. She’s often harsh, only showing vulnerability when she sobs in Michael’s arms as he reads to her a heartbreaking tale or when a village choir’s music brings her tears of joy. Through art, Hanna is able to express her emotions, connecting with her sensitivity and humanity. But as quickly as she enters Michael’s life, she evaporates. A tragic story laced with sexual awakening and emotional enlightenment, the film reveals that we may never really know the people we love.

When Michael sees Hanna again, she’s a defendant on trial for her actions as a former SS guard. I found it interesting that the film shows the trial of 6 former SS guards, all of whom were women. As the case unfolds, Michael realizes Hanna’s secret shame she’s been so desperate to hide. SPOILER -> She can’t read. As Germany had the highest rate of literacy in Europe, it’s unusual that Hanna would have been illiterate. And some have been quick to criticize the book and film for insinuating that a person would be more ashamed of illiteracy than perpetrating human rights atrocities. <- END SPOILER While reading is a crucial component of the plot, the movie isn’t really about reading or the saving grace of literature; rather it’s used as a metaphor for “moral illiteracy.” Illiteracy analogizes feigned ignorance, for those who claimed they didn’t know what was truly happening in the concentration camps despite the existence of over 10,000 camps and the notoriety of the Nazi massacres.

So much has been written and filmed about the Holocaust. But rarely have tales been told from the perspective of those who have committed unspeakable crimes or the people who loved them. Yet The Reader never condones, empathizes or excuses Hanna’s behavior. Whenever I see a film about the Holocaust, I’m reminded of the saying “never again,” that we can never let this happen again. But genocide didn’t end after WWII; numerous genocides continued to be waged (Cambodian, Rwandan, Palestinian, Kurdish, Croatian) and are still happening today. The film and book it’s adapted from serve as an allegory for how the subsequent generation dealt with the shame of the Holocaust and atrocities their parents’ and grandparents’ generations committed. And Hanna is the character symbolizing the people who committed those unspeakable acts.

So often, we see a man playing the villainous role of a Nazi so it’s interesting to me that a woman embodies that role instead. Yet, I can’t shake the unease I feel with the portrayal. Hanna has no children, no family and never marries. This may not have been the intended consequence, yet it comes off as a cautionary tale. Hanna appears to possess no maternal instinct; rather than protect, she seduces a sweet and naïve boy, alternately treating him tenderly as a passionate lover or with curt callousness. She stands trial for war crimes as a former SS guard, participating in the deaths of hundreds of women and girls. I can’t shake the feeling that if she had been scripted to bear a child or to have lost a child, she wouldn’t have behaved this way. Are single, childless women more cruel and apathetic? No, of course not. Yet Hollywood continually seems to reinforce the notion that women without children are cold and calculating.

Gender role reversals weave throughout The Reader. In the beginning, Hanna helps Michael when he’s sick. By the end of the film, the roles have switched and Michael aids Hanna. It’s interesting watching a movie with an affair between an adult woman and a teenage boy. While I certainly don’t condone it, and it made me feel squeamish rather than erotic (as many reviews described their relationship), I couldn’t help but feel relieved that it wasn’t a 15-year-old girl in this situation as we so often see men with much younger women. In the book, Hanna becomes physically abusive in one scene when she’s overcome with rage whips Michael with a belt. While she’s softened slightly for the film, I still can’t shake my apprehension that there’s an element of sexual predator.

The film slightly expands the roles of the other female characters in the book, which relies heavily on Michael’s internal monologues and narratives. By removing voiceovers, the movie does a fantastic job showing us rather than telling us the story. We see other women in the film including Lena Olin in a dual-role as holocaust survivors, Michael’s mother and sisters, a female law student (added to the film) and Michael’s daughter Julia. Yet most, save for Olin, speak minimal or no lines and none of them have any personalities to speak of.

The only woman existing in Michael’s world is Hanna, whom he uses as a scale in which to weigh all his other relationships with women. Hanna never lets Michael into her world, everything is on her terms. Yet we the audience rarely see the story from Hanna’s perspective. Occasionally we watch Hanna’s face; her terrified expression when she learns she’s going to be promoted, lest anyone discover her secret or her joy when she first unwraps Michael’s packages of recorded books, which she comes to rely on later in life. Literature is also used in the film “as a powerful means of communication, and at other times as a substitute for communication.” Michael eventually uses reading to communicate with Hanna while she uses reading as a way to deal with her emotions and grapple with her past. But even the sole female protagonist, who serves as Michael’s sun, moon and stars, still has her thoughts and views removed. SPOILER -> In the book, Hanna eventually reads books by Holocaust survivors like Elie Wiesel. <- END SPOILER She can’t muffle the sounds of the dead, they continue to haunt her. But the film adaptation erases this crucial point. The only part that even comes close to addressing Hanna’s perspective on her past actions is when she declares:

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. It doesn’t matter what I think. The dead are still dead.”

A tragic yet powerful film that raises so many crucial questions about collective action and individual choice. It’s interesting to me that so much buzz surrounded Winslet’s Oscar-winning performance. Don’t get me wrong, she was sublime in it. But while she gives a commanding yet nuanced performance, the movie often treats women as cursory. Hanna merely serves as a vehicle to express the capacity for human cruelty and apathy, to look away and ignore the brutality happening in society. Even the film’s message isn’t really about Hanna or women in general for that matter. The women merely exist as satellites, all orbiting around Michael. Just like so many other films, it still boils down to a story revolving around a man; his feelings, his perspective and his world.

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. A feminist vegan, Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World, where she writes about gender in pop culture, sexism in the media, reproductive justice and living vegan. Her work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston, MA with her diva cat and more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime. She contributed reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Something Borrowed, !Women Art Revolution, and The Kids Are All Right (for our 2011 Best Picture Nominee Review Series). She was the first writer featured as a Monthly Guest Contributor.