Ruskin, who sneers at her, “You forget who you are.” ![]() Instead, everything she does is ripped apart by Mrs. Effie, then, is left with no role at all because the family is wealthy, she can’t do the things that she expected, as a working-class woman, to do for her husband, like mend his clothes or cook his meals. Ruskin’s way and John works on his books and criticism, hoping to secure notice and attention for his observations and arguments about art. Ruskin tends to her flowers, her Bible, and her son Mr. But in this insular, gloomy home, the roles are clear: Mrs. “What shall we do? What do married people do?” Effie asks him desperately, but he is of absolutely no use: “I have as little idea as you,” he says distractedly. And when she comes to his room that night so they can consummate their marriage, the sight of her naked body inspires in him such disgust and revulsion that he flees the room, leaving her to cry alone, and then ignores her the next day and for practically every day after. It’s his mother who is referred to as Mrs. When she was 12, he wrote her a novel about fairies, and to her parents, he calls Effie his “muse” and himself “the luckiest of mortals.” But when they reach London and his family home, Denmark Hill, his behavior begins to subtly change in the company of his parents, especially his domineering, cruel mother (Julie Walters, of “Paddington”), he defers to them instead of Effie. “Effie Gray” begins in Scotland, where the poor Euphemia “Effie” (Fanning, of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2”) turns 18 and marries the rich grandson of the lord of the house, the much-older John Ruskin (Greg Wise), who has been entranced with her for years. It doesn’t make for very compelling viewing, and especially not at the film’s snail’s pace. The film from director Richard Laxton and writer Emma Thompson (who also costars here as one of Gray’s only friends) begins its story the day Ruskin and Gray are wed and ends it the day she leaves him, so the focus is only on the marriage, but the marriage was fantastically terrible because of how much Ruskin ignored and isolated Gray, so the entire film becomes us watching Gray ignored and isolated. Is there any additional insight about Ruskin’s motivations for being so abusive toward Gray? Any sense of her personality before they married or her personality after their marriage was annulled, and she married his protégé, the painter Everett Millais? Not really. That’s about all that’s known … and that’s about all “Effie Gray” depicts. The historical record shows that Gray wanted to be a good wife but Ruskin was possibly asexual or possibly a pedophile, attracted to Gray when she was a child but then revolted by her once she was old enough to marry him. ![]() ![]() But his marriage to Gray was anything but successful after being married for six years, their union was annulled because Gray could provide that it was never consummated. In the late 19th century, Ruskin was well known for his essays on art, architecture, literature, and the environment, and his works were widely read and well regarded. ![]() It’s a quiet film but a plodding one, one that gets mired in its own ponderous pace.įanning stars as Gray, who was the wife of the leading Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin. There’s a depression and listlessness to Effie that is caused by the abuse and torture of her marriage, but “Effie Gray” doesn’t really provide any deeper illumination or insight for her or many of its other characters. The movie is supposed to be illuminating, but its insights never feel particularly revelatory.ĭakota Fanning does a lot of staring as the titular character in “Effie Gray”: she stares outside of rainy windows, she stares at Scottish moors, she stares at the dimly lit walls of her prison-like house, she stares at nothingness. ‘Effie Gray’ features a solid-enough performance from lead actress Dakota Fanning, but its pacing is ponderous and frustratingly slow. Overall, there are a fair amount of mostly vague conversations about sex and its place in a marriage, but only a couple of scenes of actual sexual content and nudity. The film is about the terrible marriage between Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin and his abused young bride, the titular Effie Gray, so there is a lot of verbal abuse, calling her a “harlot,” “wicked,” and making suggestions about her sexual experience the suggestion of a man masturbating under bedsheets an attempted sexual assault some strange imagery brought on by drug addiction an inspection of Gray’s privates to check whether she is virgin and a nude man bathing and walking around in the distance, with his behind visible.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |