The Governess (1998) 2 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Minnie Driver and Tom Wilkinson.
Images are the dominant motif in The Governess, an interesting period piece by first-time director Sandra Goldbacher, who also wrote the script.
Many of the shots in Goldbacher's story view the protagonists reflected in mirrors, through a camera lens, or some other object.
That is because The Governess is a study of people wanting to change their image and of how they want people to see them.
Rosina Da Silva (Minnie Driver) is a Sephardic Jewish woman living within the warmth and love of her family in London in the 1840s. Then her world is turned upside down when her father is murdered.
In debt, Rosina, to provide for her family, decides to create a new identity, Mary Blackchurch, and accept a job as a governess to a family living on a remote Scottish island.
There she goes to work for the Cavendish family, who are the usual assortment of Victorian dysfunctionals. Rosina/Mary's pupil, Clementina (Florence Hoath), is precocious, spoiled and craves attention. Mrs. Cavendish (Harriet Walter) is bored and snobbish, treating her new employee with the utmost condescension. Mr. Cavendish (Tom Wilkinson) spends most of the day cooped up in his laboratory completely absorbed in his pioneering studies of photography.
Before you can say Charlotte Bronte, Mary has won over Clementina and formed an uneasy friendship with Mr. Cavendish, who notices her interests and aptitude in the natural sciences.
As quickly as you can say Jane Eyre, Mary is helping Mr. Cavendish - she now calls him Charles - in his work, and soon after they are helping each other undress.
Of course, this being the Victorian era, Charles is one of those repressed types who pours all his emotion into his work. Though he is in infatuated with Mary, he also mistreats her for diverting his passions from his studies to her.
Added to the mix is the Cavendishes' black sheep son, Henry (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), sent home from university in disgrace. He, too, becomes smitten with Mary to the point of obsession. His curiosity about her leads him to discover her secret.
As often happens in such melodramas, the lovers part and Rosina returns to London where she begins a new life as a photographer, recording the people in her Jewish community.
The Governess is a bleak movie. Goldbacher keeps her colors muted to fit the tone of the story.
She derives a fiery performance from Driver, who is all-consumed by her new-found passion for Charles.
Wilkinson is rigid and tightly would as the introspective inventor who finds his newly-awakened desires an unbearable intrusion upon his experiments.
Together Driver and Wilkinson form an odd alliance of heart and mind, or the sensual and the logical.
Where Goldbacher's story fails is in the buildup to the relationship between the two. It happens too quickly, and we are not sure - beside their common interest in science - what could drive such two opposites to begin such a fruitless venture.
The Governess, however, is a compelling period melodrama that touches a bit on the anti-Semitism faced by London's Jewish populace and the sacrifices and compromises some chose in order to grab what few opportunities the world afforded.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. You can e-mail him at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
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