THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
There is a sense of familiarity about THE WINGS OF THE DOVE that appears to cloud its subtle originality and inventiveness. There has been a plethora of late eighteenth-century English period dramas over the last five years and we have become accustomed to the overstated costumes, bombastic scores and soap-opera narratives. In fact, there have been so many that this little gem may get overlooked as yet another Merchant-Ivory imitation when it is vastly superior in every way.
The film starts off innocuously with a romantic interlude on a crowded train which leads to a passionate affair between Kate Croy (Helena Bonham-Carter) and Merton Denscher (Linus Roache). However, their love affair is thwarted by Kate's wealthy Aunt Maude (Charlotte Rampling) who threatens to disinherit Kate if she continues her flirt with a middle-class journalist.Their relationship appears doomed until they meet Millie Theale (Alison Elliot), an American millionairess who happens to be dying of cancer. As Kate forms a friendship with Millie, she gets this crazy notion that if Merton should seduce Millie then they would be inherit her wealth.
The film's premise may appear slight and familiar but Iain Softley's sensitive and intelligent direction transcends the film from mere soap dish to a provocative and poignant drama about passion, obsession, greed and ambition. What sets this film apart from the Merchant-Ivory drivel is the restrained and subtle way the narrative unfolds without resorting to stating the obvious. There is no unnecessary dialogue exposition stating what we already know. For once, the audience is assumed to have an above-average mentality and we are grateful.
The acting all round is outstanding. Helena Bonham-Carter deserved her Golden Globe nomination and will definitely get an Oscar nod as well. She gives a striking performance of a woman who is caught between her desires and ambitions. She often see-saws from a sympathetic character to a villain but at the end of the film, it was she who received our greatest sympathy. The complexity of the character would have been quite daunting to any performer but she pulls it off brilliantly and has now stepped up to the big league of female actors. However, who knows what Hollywood would do to her. We may see her in the next Scorsese flick or we may see her strutting her stuff in SHOWGIRLS 2. Hollywood awaits!
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews