Albert Nobbs (2011)
A great plot with some nuances of meaning, and some excellent acting. Set in Dublin a century ago, it manages to suggest, at least, the problems of some women trying to survive in a hard world. And to hint at how some people, men and women both we assume, were also struggling to be their true sexual selves in an age where openness was worse than impossible.
To have all this go awry isn't really the fault of the writing, which is good if tainted by a few clichés of period movies. It's the direction most of all that drags the thing out, making individual scenes laborious and making the whole movie take work when it should have been a joy. "Albert Nobbs" is a great idea without great direction.
You should know this is no comedy, though it seems to want to be at times (and the preview, which I saw in the theater, leads us this way). If there are little ironies and if the manners of the time, and the difference in classes, strikes us as funny, that certainly is not the larger tone of the movie. Glenn Close is central and holds up her end of things beautifully, if now and then a bit over acted in both directions. Around her is a cast of good actors who are not brought out fully--and that helps drag the movie down.
I also think the subplots are more interesting than the main one, and in this I can't give too much away. But Close's situation as a butler in this decently middling hotel leads us to see the fate of others in her lower class trying to find a way to survive, and to be themselves. A more integrated ensemble movie would have sustained it all through, and also made the last twenty minutes more convincing as these disparate pieces cross paths anew.
Enough said. It's a fair affair, and won't be a waste of your time so long you expect it to be what it is.
A great plot with some nuances of meaning, and some excellent acting. Set in Dublin a century ago, it manages to suggest, at least, the problems of some women trying to survive in a hard world. And to hint at how some people, men and women both we assume, were also struggling to be their true sexual selves in an age where openness was worse than impossible.
To have all this go awry isn't really the fault of the writing, which is good if tainted by a few clichés of period movies. It's the direction most of all that drags the thing out, making individual scenes laborious and making the whole movie take work when it should have been a joy. "Albert Nobbs" is a great idea without great direction.
You should know this is no comedy, though it seems to want to be at times (and the preview, which I saw in the theater, leads us this way). If there are little ironies and if the manners of the time, and the difference in classes, strikes us as funny, that certainly is not the larger tone of the movie. Glenn Close is central and holds up her end of things beautifully, if now and then a bit over acted in both directions. Around her is a cast of good actors who are not brought out fully--and that helps drag the movie down.
I also think the subplots are more interesting than the main one, and in this I can't give too much away. But Close's situation as a butler in this decently middling hotel leads us to see the fate of others in her lower class trying to find a way to survive, and to be themselves. A more integrated ensemble movie would have sustained it all through, and also made the last twenty minutes more convincing as these disparate pieces cross paths anew.
Enough said. It's a fair affair, and won't be a waste of your time so long you expect it to be what it is.