Called Babe or Mummy throughout a majority of The Escape, it isn’t until roughly sixty minutes into Dominic Savage’s intimate, largely improvised marital chamber drama that Gemma Arterton’s depressed married mother of two stops sleepwalking through her life long enough to reveal that her name is actually Tara.
Stating this fact in a calm, clear, and loud voice (for the relatively meek Tara that is) to a train ticketing agent, this otherwise seemingly inconsequential exchange is suddenly given the weight of the world.
Vital enough as it is for directly corresponding with the idea of escape promised by the film's title, Arterton’s simple assertion said to a fellow woman who – unlike her husband and children – wants nothing from her is, by contrast, loaded with meaning.
Brilliantly performed by its talented cast, it's in these small moments where, much like Tara, Savage’s searing film breaks out of its claustrophobic shell and allows its viewers to not only take a moment to reflect on everything that's happened but breathe.
An infinitely difficult though incredibly humanistic offering, The Escape features a potent against-type turn by Arterton's close friend and Tamara Drewe costar Dominic Cooper as Tara’s emotionally myopic, self-absorbed husband Mark.
Feeling both isolated and far removed from her husband as well as her children, Arterton's bored, stifled, and uninspired lead finds herself suffering from Thomas Hardyish levels of melancholia which increase slowly like a roller coaster making its way to the top of the first hill before the inevitable plummet.
Initially forcing herself to go through the motions with her family, as the film continues Tara prioritizes flight over fight and opts to walk away from them all.
Yet intriguingly, even though we mainly see the world of The Escape through Tara’s point-of-view, Savage refuses to give us a one-sided look at marriage and motherhood or let us think for a minute that an escape (no matter how long) will solve her problems or give her an easy way out.
A film you'll definitely want to see with a friend and chat about, The Escape is a fascinating experiment in cinéma vérité.
And while the lack of plot momentum does make the 101 minute running time feel much longer in its meandering second half, which isn't helped by a character appearing out of nowhere to dole out anticlimactic expository advice, it's still an above average docudrama.
Augmented by Arterton and Cooper's fearless commitment to their characters (which makes you keep watching long after it makes you squirm), unfortunately post-escape, the film loses the glue that was holding it together when the actors don't share the screen.
Reminiscent of a Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill play translated to film by John Cassavetes, while it doesn't quite flow naturally from start to finish, thanks to the mesmerizing turns by our leads under the guidance of Savage, much like real life, we find we just can't look away, even when it hurts.
In Keira Knightley's most impressive performance to date, she portrays The Duchess of Devonshire a.k.a. Georgiana Spencer-- whom-- as both a distant relative of Princess Diana and as a contemporary of Marie Antoinette, has become another incredibly fascinating female historical figure who has captured biographers' attention again and again.
In director Saul Dibb's The Duchess-- one of Film Intuition's favorite films of 2008-- which was based on Amanda Foreman's biography Georgiana: The Duchess of Devonshire, we're given an intimate look at the life of the young young who was later dubbed the "Empress of Fashion" and became argably England's first "It Girl."
For the gorgeous Blu-ray transfer from Paramount Vantage, some intoxicating High Definition bonus features have been added to the film, which I'll rate along with the technical aspects, after first presenting the film's review, which was originally published upon its release on October 10, 2008.
Overall, while period pictures or costume dramas have always been popular (Ben Hur, Spartacus, etc.), with very few exceptions-- including Cleopatra and Out of Africa-- it's been a largely male dominated genre. History after all begins with the letters H-I-S but over the past decade and most notably since Shekhar Kapur's brilliant original Elizabeth--which launched the career of the then unknown Cate Blanchett-- we've begun to catch a glimpse of the past from a feminine and/or (more often than not) feminist point-of-view.
Whether it was in Sofia Coppola's controversial re-imagining of Marie Antoinette based on the book by Antonia Fraser or in more conventional adaptations such as this year's The Other Boleyn Girl,history has suddenly become "herstory" and British director Saul Dibb's brilliant new film, The Duchess is not only the latest entry but one of the best since Blanchett portrayed the Virgin Queen in 1998.
Of course, by now we've all been presented with the unfavorable circumstances of women being bartered and legally contracted into marriage or traded as though they were cattle for their ability to produce a male heir. Not to mention, we're familiar with the sad truth that one must either marry well or become a spinster governess in both the films and the novels of Austen and the Bronte sisters. Still, The Duchess manages to drive this home even further in its extremely effective structure by presenting this situation nearly completely from our heroine's point-of-view.
While admittedly one could say that Keira Knightley has agreed to star in one too many period pieces (coming off the heels of Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and the Pirates of the Caribbean films among others), she turns in her best work in her most mature performance to date as Georgiana Spencer.
Spirited and beautiful-- the natural people-pleaser who'd always been the center of attention-- Georgiana became, as Paramount Vangage's press release notes, England's first authentic "It Girl." Often dubbed the Empress of Fashion, Georgiana is plunged into the spotlight from relative obscurity after her ambitious mother, the Lady Spencer (Charlotte Rampling) negotiates the socially advantageous marriage with the middle aged Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) with the promise that her teenage daughter will bear him a son.
Cold, ill-mannered, and far more at ease seducing maids and playing with his dogs than talking to his new young wife, as Georgiana's closest friend the Lady Elizabeth "Bess" Foster phrases it, it seems as though Fiennes' Duke is the only man in London not in love with his wife. Prone to leaving dinner parties filled with politicians as soon as he's finished eating or roughly handling his wife when fulfilling his procreational duties, the Duke quickly surprises Georgiana with the arrival of Charlotte, a daughter he'd fathered years earlier. While fortunately Georgianna takes to the young girl at once and becomes the mother the orphaned girl had always wanted, unfortunately for the Duke, she conceives and births two additional daughters and the pressure to produce a son drives their already strained marriage further apart.
Seeking solace in apparel she designs and in the company of others, she finds what she assumes will be a friend for life in the far worldlier but troubled Lady Elizabeth a.k.a. "Bess" (played by Hayley Atwell), who has suffered far more devastating crimes in her own marriage. Yet when the Duke makes a move on Bess, suddenly their friendship is jeopardized when initially a love triangle is formed, which grows into a quadrangle after Georgina discovers a passion of her own when she becomes reacquainted with a youthful crush, Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper).
Fresh out of Cambridge and climbing the ranks in Parliament, Grey's devotion to changing England for the better with the Whig Party inspires Georgiana to get involved and as noted by Paramount, "determined to be a player in the wider affairs of the world, she proved that she could out-gamble, out-drink and outwit most of the aristocratic men that surrounded her." However, when she tries to carve out a piece of her own romantic happiness, everything comes tumbling down as the Duchess is forced to choose between duty, family and love much "like her direct descendant Princess Diana."
As Knightley told Josh Patner in the November issue of Glamour Magazine, she was fascinated by the prospect of playing someone so complicated, describing the Duchess as the type of individual who "can be lonely in a huge group of people" which reminded me of her French contemporary, Marie Antoinette ("Keria for Real," pg. 230). And since as the title connotes, it is the Duchess with whom we identify throughout the film--based on Amanda Foreman's award-winning and critically acclaimed biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire-- Knightley gives her character her all as we feel her small joys and pain throughout.
And while on the first viewing, it's Knightley's show all the way and I'd be extremely surprised if this didn't garner her at least an Academy Award nomination, in viewing it a second time, I was struck by the entire cast, most notably Hayley Atwell. Following up a role in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, the icy and unsuccessful period piece Brideshead Revisited and an excellent Irish sleeper How About You-- 2008 is Atwell's year for dynamic supporting work and she's truly a marvel in a role that is easily as complicated as our leading lady's.
And rebounding from the disastrous Mamma Mia! in a role that finally did justice to his phenomenal History Boys buzz, Dominic Cooper makes a dishy young hearthrob but it's the former hearthrob Ralph Fiennes who definitely surprises. While not as easily evil as his work as Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter-- especially since as loathsome as the Duke is, he is also a product of his time-- Fiennes shows a quiet, powerful, and off-putting side in a commanding portrayal of a man who rarely seems comfortable in his own skin and, much like his wife, always gives off the impression he'd rather be somewhere else entirely.
Penned by the director, Casanova screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher and After the Wedding's Anders Thomas Jensen, this sumptuously ravishing period piece is far more than a deceptively pretty little picture. Additionally, it manages to avoid the surface level trappings of its genre. And as a nice change of pace to the testosterone-fueled historical epics like Braveheart and Gladiator, by offering a look at a time and place from a woman's perspective, it helps to breathe much needed life and offer a more irresistible approach to a classical genre. One of the most impressive new films of the fall, The Duchess is highly recommended, especially for mothers and their teenage daughters to see together to promote a worthwhile dialogue about gender and history.
II. The Blu-ray
The superlative picture quality and emphasis on natural candle based light actually improves upon the digital transfer to televisions which can adjust the brightness of the color in order to either make things more vivid, help with the contrast or make the period world seem a bit crisper in one's living room.
Yet, one major flaw with the Blu-ray is that-- even with an HDMI cord obtaining the highest audio transfer possible-- the sound was overly quiet, much like the DVD of Knightley's Best Picture nominee from the year before, Atonement. With music and sound effects drowning out the dialogue, I found myself constantly playing with the remote, trying to balance the sound settings specifically for the film and grudgingly cranking the sound up to 50 in order to make out a conversation between Knightley and her mother, played by Charlotte Rampling.
Although thankfully, subtitles are offered so that we can read what we are missing on the audio track-- it detracts somewhat from the experience, yet fortunately the film still packs a wallop in Dibb's dedication to bring audiences a 360 degree world of the time, as he notes in the 23 minute "How Far She Went...Making The Duchess" featurette.
Learning there was much more to Georgiana's life than what appeared on the screen, we discover that she secretly battled with numerous difficulties including a gambling addiction and subsequent debt, battle with bulimia, and drug abuse which author and biographer Foreman attributes to the "crippling effect" that overwhelming scrutiny, notoriety, and fame had on the young woman.
With a disregard for traditional manners in favor of addressing people with warmth and in energetic earnest, historians discuss the life of the woman and take us to numerous real locations such as Chatsworth and the Old Vic which were used in the film in the wondrous "making-of" featurette."
Also including insights from the three main stars both on their own characters and each other as Fiennes and Atwell marvel at Knightley's stamina and talent, special consideration is also given to the makeup and wardrobe department as they explain not only how much work went into each selection and in preparing Knightley (sometimes adorning her with wigs that were so heavy she couldn't move her neck) but also, in the "Costume Diary" extra, the way that the young women's wardrobe (as evidenced in the photos) changes over time as Knightley is first seen in pale colors and ends in a dark gown and Atwell is given the opposite approach, to add subtextual layers to their characters.
Like Coppola's Marie Antoinette, the production design and costuming are first rate but history buffs will also want to explore the mini-featurette "Georgianna In Her Own Words" as we listen to the letters written by the Duchess and note the way that her handwriting, personality, and outlook changed from her initial correspondence as "a young girl trying to be a grown up" to the amount of pressure and insecurity she faced in continually being unable to bear the Duke a son.
Although this extra runs a brief seven minutes and you'll find yourself wishing the Blu-ray had come as a gift set complete with Foreman's book to get the fullest picture possible on the beautiful Duchess, it's a remarkable work that I'm hoping will garner the audience it should've received initially now that it's been made available on DVD and Blu-ray, which nicely hits shelves just following Ralph Fiennes' recent Golden Globe nomination for his performance.
Overall, while period pictures or costume dramas have always been popular (Ben Hur, Spartacus, etc.), with very few exceptions-- including Cleopatra and Out of Africa-- it's been a largely male dominated genre. History after all begins with the letters H-I-S but over the past decade and most notably since Shekhar Kapur's brilliant original Elizabeth--which launched the career of the then unknown Cate Blanchett-- we've begun to catch a glimpse of the past from a feminine and/or (more often than not) feminist point-of-view.
Whether it was in Sofia Coppola's controversial re-imagining of Marie Antoinette based on the book by Antonia Fraser or in more conventional adaptations such as this year's The Other Boleyn Girl,history has suddenly become "herstory" and British director Saul Dibb's brilliant new film, The Duchess is not only the latest entry but one of the best since Blanchett portrayed the Virgin Queen in 1998.
Of course, by now we've all been presented with the unfavorable circumstances of women being bartered and legally contracted into marriage or traded as though they were cattle for their ability to produce a male heir. Not to mention, we're familiar with the sad truth that one must either marry well or become a spinster governess in both the films and the novels of Austen and the Bronte sisters. Still, The Duchess manages to drive this home even further in its extremely effective structure by presenting this situation nearly completely from our heroine's point-of-view.
While admittedly one could say that Keira Knightley has agreed to star in one too many period pieces (coming off the heels of Pride and Prejudice, Atonement and the Pirates of the Caribbean films among others), she turns in her best work in her most mature performance to date as Georgiana Spencer.
Spirited and beautiful-- the natural people-pleaser who'd always been the center of attention-- Georgiana became, as Paramount Vangage's press release notes, England's first authentic "It Girl." Often dubbed the Empress of Fashion, Georgiana is plunged into the spotlight from relative obscurity after her ambitious mother, the Lady Spencer (Charlotte Rampling) negotiates the socially advantageous marriage with the middle aged Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes) with the promise that her teenage daughter will bear him a son.
Cold, ill-mannered, and far more at ease seducing maids and playing with his dogs than talking to his new young wife, as Georgiana's closest friend the Lady Elizabeth "Bess" Foster phrases it, it seems as though Fiennes' Duke is the only man in London not in love with his wife. Prone to leaving dinner parties filled with politicians as soon as he's finished eating or roughly handling his wife when fulfilling his procreational duties, the Duke quickly surprises Georgiana with the arrival of Charlotte, a daughter he'd fathered years earlier. While fortunately Georgianna takes to the young girl at once and becomes the mother the orphaned girl had always wanted, unfortunately for the Duke, she conceives and births two additional daughters and the pressure to produce a son drives their already strained marriage further apart.
Seeking solace in apparel she designs and in the company of others, she finds what she assumes will be a friend for life in the far worldlier but troubled Lady Elizabeth a.k.a. "Bess" (played by Hayley Atwell), who has suffered far more devastating crimes in her own marriage. Yet when the Duke makes a move on Bess, suddenly their friendship is jeopardized when initially a love triangle is formed, which grows into a quadrangle after Georgina discovers a passion of her own when she becomes reacquainted with a youthful crush, Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper).
Fresh out of Cambridge and climbing the ranks in Parliament, Grey's devotion to changing England for the better with the Whig Party inspires Georgiana to get involved and as noted by Paramount, "determined to be a player in the wider affairs of the world, she proved that she could out-gamble, out-drink and outwit most of the aristocratic men that surrounded her." However, when she tries to carve out a piece of her own romantic happiness, everything comes tumbling down as the Duchess is forced to choose between duty, family and love much "like her direct descendant Princess Diana."
As Knightley told Josh Patner in the November issue of Glamour Magazine, she was fascinated by the prospect of playing someone so complicated, describing the Duchess as the type of individual who "can be lonely in a huge group of people" which reminded me of her French contemporary, Marie Antoinette ("Keria for Real," pg. 230). And since as the title connotes, it is the Duchess with whom we identify throughout the film--based on Amanda Foreman's award-winning and critically acclaimed biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire-- Knightley gives her character her all as we feel her small joys and pain throughout.
And while on the first viewing, it's Knightley's show all the way and I'd be extremely surprised if this didn't garner her at least an Academy Award nomination, in viewing it a second time, I was struck by the entire cast, most notably Hayley Atwell. Following up a role in Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream, the icy and unsuccessful period piece Brideshead Revisited and an excellent Irish sleeper How About You-- 2008 is Atwell's year for dynamic supporting work and she's truly a marvel in a role that is easily as complicated as our leading lady's.
And rebounding from the disastrous Mamma Mia! in a role that finally did justice to his phenomenal History Boys buzz, Dominic Cooper makes a dishy young hearthrob but it's the former hearthrob Ralph Fiennes who definitely surprises. While not as easily evil as his work as Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter-- especially since as loathsome as the Duke is, he is also a product of his time-- Fiennes shows a quiet, powerful, and off-putting side in a commanding portrayal of a man who rarely seems comfortable in his own skin and, much like his wife, always gives off the impression he'd rather be somewhere else entirely.
Penned by the director, Casanova screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher and After the Wedding's Anders Thomas Jensen, this sumptuously ravishing period piece is far more than a deceptively pretty little picture. Additionally, it manages to avoid the surface level trappings of its genre. And as a nice change of pace to the testosterone-fueled historical epics like Braveheart and Gladiator, by offering a look at a time and place from a woman's perspective, it helps to breathe much needed life and offer a more irresistible approach to a classical genre. One of the most impressive new films of the fall, The Duchess is highly recommended, especially for mothers and their teenage daughters to see together to promote a worthwhile dialogue about gender and history.
I was raised in the era of “please and thank you,” “sir and ma’am,” The Golden Rule, and the firm belief that if one doesn’t have anything nice to say, one shouldn’t say anything at all. It’s a thought that goes back centuries to Jane Austen’s time when the women were advised to stick to the topics of either inquiring as to another’s health and/or restricting their comments to the weather.
Unfortunately, as a film critic, I seldom have that luxury and while I feel I’m far gentler than some critics who curse, berate, exaggerate and figuratively crucify films they loathe—although this being said my favorite critic Roger Ebert summed it up best in the title of a new book, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie—instead, I turn from those manners implanted in me from my youth and go to an old Hollywood standby.
It’s become a movie premiere joke that if an attendee dislikes a film but doesn’t want to say this to another’s face, they usually begin by complimenting its cinematography in the fierce hope the topic will soon change. It’s a strange custom—“I really loved the cinematography” in Hollywood can be code for “I’d rather have a root canal than sit through that thing again,” yet cinematography is one of my favorite aspects of filmmaking.
However, in the case of the dreadful Mamma Mia! which is only slightly better than another ghastly film I’ve just seen but can’t even bring myself to review (Ellen Page in The Tracey Fragments which is so dreadful that it makes you start to rethink Page’s performance in Juno) but yet still worse than the mirthless comedy The Promotion, the only thing I can think to praise is the cinematography.
And the sad fact is, I’m not even being ironic or coy—director of photography, the amazing Sleuthand Venus lensman Haris Zambarloukos actually topped his underrated work on last year’s Sleuth. His picturesque, exuberant, and breathtaking Mamma Mia! shots that were so jaw-droppingly gorgeous, they helped detract from the much-crucified sadly giggle-inducing awfulness of Pierce Brosnan’s singing. Additionally, like a morally questionable yet talented plastic surgeon, they helped make a film I can only call shockingly “ugly” just by its direction, odd choreography, and off-putting humor, seem like any given frame could be clipped out of the reel and hung in a museum. Indeed, the travel board of Greece’s island Kalokairi, may want to think about hiring Zambarloukos to film any future travel commercials, yet I feel it’s probably superfluous as the monstrous hit, Mamma Mia! has probably garnered enough fans who’ve decided to visit just on their appreciation for the Broadway musical alone.
Before I even begin to address the film itself, let me preface this by saying—at great risk to my already nerdy reputation-- that in the late 90’s, there was no bigger ABBA fan than yours truly. Their greatest hits album Gold and its sequel had a permanent place in both my home and car CD player and I was often busted at stoplights by drivers in other cars who saw me singing my heart out along to the lyrics penned by Sweden’s greatest export, which was especially embarrassing when this very incident happened not only one block from my college but I was caught by my crush of the week who luckily found it charming, yet proceeded to tease me the rest of the semester by belting out the chorus of “Take a Chance on Me” whenever he saw me walk down a hallway. (Naturally, I took this as an invitation!)
In fact, super-fan that I was, I annoyed my DJ cousin for ABBA requests at receptions he worked until he clued me in that in the DJ world, there’s nothing less hip than a woman requesting “Dancing Queen.” While I told him that any other track would suffice, all I got was an eye-roll and a pat on the back but fortunately, after viewing ABBA: The Movie far too many times on VH1, I began to outgrow my love of the band… until-- that is--word came ‘round that their music had been used throughout a new Broadway hit, Mamma Mia!
It took a few years until I saw the show in a touring company in my hometown and while indeed it was fun to see others enjoy ABBA’s music (despite the overabundance of misguided middle aged men and women dancing and singing along in the aisles which instantly cured me of any major worship of the band), I couldn’t get over the feeling that the show itself was a bit forgettable and overrated.
Yet, to misquote the old Elvis slogan, I assumed that millions of fans around the globe can’t be wrong so when I learned it was going to be adapted to film, as a huge Hollywood musical lover (I know, I just get geekier by the minute), I hoped for the best. Initially, I was skeptical when I heard that Meryl Streep had been selected for the lead role of Donna, the film’s heroine whose soon-to-be wed twenty-year-old daughter Sophie (the adorable Amanda Seyfried) has unbeknownst to Donna-- after discovering her mother’s vintage diary--invited her three possible biological fathers to the wedding with the hope of identifying which one is her dear old dad.
While Streep is hands-down one of the finest actresses in the world, I just didn’t see her as the singing, dancing, earthily sexy, free-spirited Donna, imagining someone like the musically gifted Michelle Pfeiffer for her role. Thankfully, Streep's actually quite good in the film, managing to nail not only every required emotion but hit the notes in a nice way that never overpowers, and manages to win over any doubters with the showstopper “The Winner Takes It All,” for which IMDb reports the vocals were recorded in Sweden in just one take.
No, the problem isn’t with Streep—although she’s given some of the most unflattering, unfeminine, and downright ugly direction ever captured in a musical, with pratfalls aplenty and cannonballs into the sea. However, far more irritating is the continuous choreography that finds her landing with her legs in the air numerous times as though she’s overdue for a pelvic exam. This seems all the more grotesque when this is precisely the way that Mamma’s original stage director Phyllida Lloyd (who also helmed the film) decided to have her first encounter her three former lovers, as though she’s figuratively readying herself for a fertility exercise or about to give birth just as they arrive... complete with—and I kid you not—a Lamaze type breath out the side of her mouth to blow her hair off her face.
Yikes, baby, we’ve come a long, sad way from Cyd Charisse wooing with her sexy legs, or a flirtatious laugh by Ginger Rogers, or a come hither look by Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago. And while the actors all try their best—even poor, pitiful Brosnan who always seems like he’s staring off in the distance, longing to leave the set and go home to his family, not to mention his James Bond residual checks— they’re given very little with which to work in an uneven translation from stage to screen-- making the fault lie squarely with Lloyd.
In the end and despite casting such excellent talents such as up-and-coming hunky British Generation Y star Dominic Cooper, the underrated Stellan Skarsgard and my favorite version of Mr. Darcy, Colin Firth-- overall Mamma Mia! is one over-the-top, bawdy, Fellini like carnvialesque freak-show. I'm not sure about Greece but in the tacky land of Mamma, often the women shriek for no apparent reason (including a wasted Christine Baranski who nonetheless kills in her one showstopper “Does Your Mother Know”) while playing dress-up complete with quirky props that probably would never have even made it into the far campier yet more successful John Waters musical turned film Hairspray from 2007.
In addition, don’t even get me started on a downright embarrassing and desperate sequence featuring Julie Walters crooning “Take a Chance on Me” to a nearly terrified looking Skarsgard, who-- par for the course of male stars in the film-- spends a majority of his time like Firth and Brosnan, trying his damndest not to look at his watch in the hopes that the madness will end sooner rather than later (probably much like a majority of heterosexual males dragged to the film).
And as someone who still knows every single word of every one of ABBA’s classic songs (yes, even the forgettable ones like “Money, Money, Money”), not to mention a film buff who truly makes an effort to champion musical filmmaking in the hopes that we’re given more quality musicals to rival the golden age of those unforgettable MGM classics, it breaks my heart to say that the film is one of the biggest disappointments of the summer.
However, it’s one that I can also say in complete honesty and without just trying to politely evade critique, that man, did I love that spectacular cinematography.
Walking Movie Encyclopedia at Film Intuition; 3-Time National Award Winning Scribe; Film Reviewer; "Watch With Jen" Podcast Host; Screenwriter; Movie Discussion Host; BA in Film Studies & Communication.
