(UK, 111 min.)
Dir. Ralph Fiennes, Writ Abi Morgan
Starring: Felicity Jones, Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas,
Joanna Scanlan, Tom Hollander
 |
| Felicity Jones as Nelly Ternan and Ralph Fiennes as Charles Dickens. Photo by David Appleby, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics |
It was first William Shakespeare, now it’s Charles Dickens.
Ralph Fiennes sure is becoming a literary filmmaker, eh? The Victorian-era
scribe fares a bit better than the Bard did thanks to Fiennes’ sophomore
feature film The Invisible Woman. The Invisible Woman shows an impressive
step up for Mr. Fiennes as far as the technical prowess of making a movie is
concerned. (Chaotic cinematography and an off-kilter tempo were key faults in
2011's Coriolanus.) Fiennes still has
a bit of work to do before he establishes himself an auteur in addition to being a very fine actor, but the back-to-back
successes of Coriolanus and The Invisible Woman are steps in the
right direction. All Mr. Fiennes needs to do is show as much improvement on
film number three as he does with film number two and he could be the next
great actor-director. The Ben Affleck of literary types, perhaps?
Fiennes’ latest film is an especially bookish one. The Invisible Woman, adapted from the book by Claire Tomalin, looks at the life of one of England's most beloved authors with a modestly scintillating eye. It’s not so much the story of Charles Dickens himself, but rather of the woman who gave cause to read between the lines. The Invisible Woman dramatizes the affair between Mr. Dickens (played by Fiennes) and a young aspiring actress named Nelly Ternan (played by Like Crazy’s Felicity Jones).
The film tells of the relationship between Mr. Dickens and
Miss Ternan via flashbacks as Nelly recalls her affair with Charles. Nelly, now
married to another man, is rehearsing one of Dickens’ plays with a chorus of
school kids. Her esteem for Dickens’ words is made abundantly clear as she
corrects the young thespians’ butchering of the text. Each word was precisely
chosen, so it must be delivered with equal measure.
It was in bringing the words of Dickens to life that first
drew the pair together, as Nelly’s memories introduce the audience to her first
meeting with Dickens when her mother (played by Fiennes’ English Patient co-star Kristin Scott Thomas, who is quite
memorable in an underwritten role) brings the girls to assist Dickens with a
play. Nelly is in love with the man himself as much as she is in love with the
words he writes—her sisters tease that she has read David Copperfield at least twice—but the feeling hardly seems
mutual even though Nelly defends Dickens’ memory to the peers with which she
rehearses the play. She keeps her past life with Dickens a secret and simply recalls
their relationship in her mind.
The pattern of present-day episodes and flashbacks reveal a
paradoxical Mr. Dickens as seen through the eyes of Miss Ternan. Dickens writes
a decent love story; his readings reveal an acute eye for the human condition
and the ability to articulate observations and social consciousness with
greater manner than any of his contemporaries do; however, Dickens hardly seems
like the man one expects him to be from print. The Invisible Woman reveals a man isolated and controlling, a
Dickens who feeds on the all-consuming power of love for his own desires
without heed to the needs of the women in his life. (The Invisible Woman, however, does show Dickens’ ability to put his
social consciousness into practice as a charity reading acts as a first date
between Charles and Nelly.) Nelly is equally starved, but her recollection of
her naïveté writes its own perceptive account of the times in which Dickens
lived and wrote.
Queen Victoria might have reigned during the years of Nelly’s
romance with Dickens, but The Invisible
Woman offers a fine portrait of a stiff patriarchal society in which women
were defined by the men in their lives. Nelly isn’t an agent of her own desires
until she walks in isolation on the beach and looks back upon her affair. She
recalls the days in which her name was passed with a whisper as her mother
worried dearly that a relationship with Dickens would sully her reputation.
Mrs. Ternan’s fears weren’t unfounded, for Dickens seems to have treated Nelly
as something akin to a weekend diversion as he kept her tucked away in the
country while continuing his public life as a prolific writer in London, for
divorce was too much a scandal. Dickens denouncing his own wife in the paper,
however, was less so.
The Invisible Woman
is essentially a tale of two women rendered invisible by Dickens’ desires.
Among the flashback scenes is ample insight into the coldness between Dickens
and his wife, Catherine (Joanna Scanlan). Nelly’s recollection of her first
encounter with Dickens signals to viewers that Mr. Dickens isn’t the softest
creatures where it concerns the women in his life. He introduces the Ternans to
everyone in his theatre company and proudly presents each of his children, and
then dismissively acknowledges his wife, who sits in the corner and nods.
Catherine is given especially compelling treatment by Scanlan and Fiennes alike.
The few scenes in which The Invisible
Woman grants Catherine a voice present a woman stripped of her own selfhood
and agency, rendered depressed and despondent by a husband who is celebrated
for his consideration and observation, but pays little attention to the people
living in his own home. The most striking scene in The Invisible Woman is that which pits both invisible women in a
cruel confrontation, as Catherine is forced to present Nelly with a birthday
gift that was delivered to her by mistake. Dickens himself requested she hand
present the jewellery to her successor.
If The Invisible Woman
does Catherine any justice, however, Felicity Jones’s portrayal of Nelly Ternan
is doubly striking. Jones, who gave a truly revelatory performance in Like Crazy, is excellent once again in
this tricky role of giving voice to a woman who rarely had chance to speak.
Poignant in ability to suffer in silence, and then to do so again as she
reframes the affair from a fresh perspective, Jones gives a performance of
powerful subtlety. She owns The Invisible
Woman from beginning to end.
Fiennes, likewise, is remarkably good as Charles Dickens. He honours Dickens' work with some great orations--Fiennes' readings of Dickens' prose is especially captivating--but he isn't afraid to make Dickens as comically repulsive as a character in one of the author's own novels might be. The
director smartly lets his performance act as a complement to Jones, rather than
as the overshadowing figure that Dickens probably was in real life. The Invisible Woman, thanks to the balanced
script by Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady)
and to Fiennes’ subtle direction, smartly observes the period of Dickens’ life
with a Dickensian eye for atmosphere, sociology, and character.
The Invisible Woman,
however, also plays a bit like a Dickens book in the sense that it is rather
stiff. The slow pace and mannered formalities of the presentation make The Invisible Woman drag her train at
times, although one must consistently note what an exquisitely crafted train it
is. The Oscar-nominated costumes are impeccably detailed and the cinematography
by Rob Hardy is luminous. (The grating score by Ilan Eskeri, less so.)
The Invisible Woman is
a quietly compelling film that grows on you. (Like Nelly’s own memories, things
need time to take shape in the mind.) The sumptuous literariness of The Invisible Woman should appeal to fans
of the John Keats/Fanny Brawne romance Bright
Star and those in the mood for something that reads between the lines of a novel
love story. Fiennes might not yet be quite in the league of Jane Campion, but
his most recent effort as a director is a step towards greater things. It’s a
treat to see this insightful look into the life of Charles Dickens, but the
greatest treat is the invisible woman herself.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★½ (out of ★★★★★)
The Invisible Woman screens in Ottawa at The ByTowne until Feb. 3 and at The Mayfair Feb. 23, 25, 27.
It is playing in
Toronto at the Cineplex Varsity and Varsity VIP and the Canada Square.
