Blu-ray Review: The Aspern Papers (2018)

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With three generations of Redgraves linked to three productions of The Aspern Papers, by this point you could say that bringing the gothically romantic Henry James tale to life is officially a Redgrave thing.

Originally published in 1888 and in three parts no less, the novella — inspired by the letters that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley penned for his wife Mary Shelley's step-sister, Claire Clairmont, which Claire kept until her death — was first brought to the stage by Michael Redgrave in 1959.

Later revived in 1984 in an award-winning production starring Michael's daughter Vanessa Redgrave (opposite Christopher Reeve who acted alongside her in a big-screen Merchant Ivory version of Henry James's The Bostonians also in ‘84), now more than thirty years later, Redgrave gets the chance to bring Papers to life once again.

Changing with the times by taking on a new role in this effort from first time feature filmmaker Julien Landais, which, produced by James Ivory is based on a French scenic adaptation by Jean Pavans, in 2018’s The Aspern Papers Vanessa Redgrave passes the torch to daughter Joely Richardson who slides into her old part.

A sudsy drama about an obsessive American editor, the film stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Morton Vint who — using whatever guise and lies are necessary — travels to Venice to track down the letters of his literary idol Jeffrey Aspern.

Posing as a man on holiday, he rents a room from Redgrave's Clairmont inspired Juliana Bordereau and sets out to win over the woman's sheltered, spinster niece Miss Tina (Richardson).

While ordinarily Rhys Meyers can play the role of a seducer in his sleep and make you believe it, he's visibly uncomfortable in Aspern, turning in a performance that's half Lestat from Interview With the Vampire and half Elvis Presley, whom he portrayed to well-deserved acclaim in a 2005 television miniseries. And although yes, I'm aware that he also played Dracula recently on the small screen perhaps, as with Aspern, the less said about that the better.

As disinterested as it is overly strong, Aspern's acting is a mess to say the least and indicative of a much bigger problem, which is the film itself. For in his uncertainty throughout, Rhys Meyers is far from alone.

All three of the film's performances feel like they belong in three entirely different James adaptations. While Redgrave easily dominates as a cross between Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond and Film Noir era Joan Crawford, Richardson tiptoes quietly around the others, playing her part as though she'd just stepped onstage in The Glass Menagerie.

Filled with clunky, heavy-handed narration and odd moments of Eyes Wide Shut homage that belong in a fragrance ad (which makes sense considering the director's background helming fashion shorts, commercials, and music videos), although the Venetian backdrop is stunning and thespians will relish the opportunity to see the Redgrave family command a scene, this is easily the worst Henry James adaptation I have ever seen.

Unsure just what exactly it is that he wants to say, Landais seems much more interested in using the characters — namely Vint — as a jumping off point to explore his own ideas and identity.

And although it's apparent that Landais is a visual thinker with some kind of story to tell, it's easy to deduce within the first few monologues by the Redgraves who know it best that The Aspern Papers isn't it.


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August Rush

Director: Kirsten Sheridan

Kirsten Sheridan, daughter of director Jim Sheridan who collaborated with her sister and father on the Academy Award nominated screenplay for Jim’s In America crafted this gorgeous ode to childlike innocence, the power of the family blood and the magic of music sure to be a sleeper hit in the 2007 holiday season. With August Rush, Sheridan works from a script by Nick Castle and James V. Hart (based on a story by Castle and Paul Castro) that melds fairy tale elements with an homage to Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist about Evan Taylor (Freddie Highmore) an eleven year old orphan boy who escapes the New York boys’ home where he’s taunted by others to track down his biological parents. Along the way he meets Arthur (or our “Artful Dodger”) played by Leon G. Thomas III, a fellow runaway turned street musician who takes pity on the goodhearted Evan and gives him shelter with the unstable schemer Wizard (Robin Williams who IMDb reports modeled his character on Bono). Together Wizard and Arthur realize Evan’s natural gift for music after the young prodigy becomes an accomplished guitarist literally overnight and soon Evan takes to the streets using the name August Rush and becomes a sensation. Although he later realizes it's his calling, Freddie Highmore with his infectious smile and earnest persona first becomes enamored of the idea of music as a way to reach his parents who viewers quickly learn were musicians in their own right in a beautiful flashback set-up at the beginning of the film. Waitress star Keri Russell plays the elegant Julliard trained cellist Lyla Novacek whose career is managed by her well-meaning but domineering father whose drive to keep his daughter sheltered and successful take a dramatic turn after she finds herself pregnant from a one-night stand with Louis Connelly, a gorgeous Irish lad (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, of course and thankfully keeping his accent) who’s a guitarist in an up-and-coming rock band made up of his brothers. The young lovers’ brief night that begins with Connelly crooning Van Morrison’s "Moondance" on a beautiful night on a rooftop overlooking New York’s Washington Square Park is one of the very few scenes Russell and Meyers share together onscreen and in fact, the main trio of actors are seldom seen occupying the same frame which may have been a problem in other films but in the hands of Sheridan, much credit is owed to her skill and ability to fill the rest of the cast with moving supporting players such as Terrence Howard as a genuinely caring child services worker named Richard Jeffries who finds himself moved by both Highmore and Russell’s pleas to track one another down. Although admittedly very little of the film feels at all real, August Rush is a beautiful and refreshingly optimistic family film filled with innocent idealism with just enough Dickensian elements thrown in for good measure—an escapist work with a wonderful musical soundtrack which will hopefully earn some recognition during award season.