Retrospective: Portrait of a Lady, The (1996)
Dragan Antulov
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003
Jane Campion, only three years after receiving plenty of prestigious
awards and rave reviews for her feminist period melodrama PIANO,
tried to repeat that triumph with her another ambitious period film.
She has taken Henry James novel THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, one
of 19th Century American literature most important books, and
adapted it into film that, at the end of a day, turned into failure.
Following the brief modern-day prologue, the plot begins in 1872
England. Isabel Archer (played by Nicole Kidman) is 23-year old
American orphan who visits her rich uncle, Mr. Touchet (played by
John Gielgud). There she becomes attractive target for many potential
suitors who would solve her financial problems. Her sickly cousin
Ralph (played by Martin Donovan) has a better idea and persuades
Mr. Touchet to leave huge sum of money to Isabel. When the old man
dies, Isabel is financially independent and free to pursue her dream
of travelling through Europe. During her journey, she falls prey to
the seductive manipulation of sleazy and impoverished Gilbert
Osmond (played by John Malkovich) and his mistress Serena Merle
(played by Barbara Hershey).
There are many reasons why THE PORTRAIT OF LADY turned into
such disappointment, but the biggest of them probably lies in
Campion's ambition to beat Merchant Ivory at their game of adapting
old literary classics. 600 page novel she took was quite a challenge for
adaptation, and only the most talented and experienced screenwriter
could have squeezed the plot and characters in two and half hours of
running time. Laura Jones, unfortunately, wasn't up to that task - the
plot is in many way incomprehensible, and Jones and Campion only
added to the confusion with their feminist interpretations of some
motives. Probably the worst of all was decision to cast Malkovich in
the role of Osmond - he plays him in such way that nobody could
believe that some lady like Isabel Archer would end up with such
obviously evil and sinister man. The movie isn't helped by some
unfortunate choices, including Nicole Kidman's hairstyle, which
looks like spitting image of the horror Annie Lenox had in her "No
More I Love Yous" videoclip. The only good thing in THE
PORTRAIT OF A LADY is Wojciech Kilar's music, but those who like
to enjoy it should better spend money on CD than subject themselves
to two and half hours of failed movie.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
Review written on October 30th 2003
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society
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X-RT-RatingText: 2/10