The Mill on the Floss

It reminds me a bit of "North and South" and the 2011 version of "Jane Eyre" in the sense that it's not a feel-good romantic period piece and the setting is pretty stark. Frankly, it's not particularly romantic at all. I suppose it's a character study more than anything. The main character has her own idea of integrity that I'm not even sure I agree with.

I kind of liked the film but I see why other people don't; it's flawed: the movie depicts the close sibling relationship but, the actors who played the siblings didn't have much familial chemistry with each other (the actor who played Tom was particularly dull) so their scenes felt flat and pointless.

Stephen and Lucy felt a bit generic as well. James Frain was wonderful and deep as Phillip but, so much so that he stuck out and it felt like he should've been a character in a different (and better) movie. As I mentioned, I "sort of" liked the movie but, it was very flawed.

Emily Watson is magnificent as usual in this film and typically makes it her own with her very presence. Not beautiful in the clichéd, typical Hollywood way, Watson sets the screen on fire with her fiery passion and electric sexuality. When she is in a scene, one finds it impossible to take their eyes off of her. Her eyes are captivating and those uniquely seductive lips fascinate. She is a superb actor and her art is aided dramatically by her sexual power. The viewer is overwhelmed by that sexual intensity whenever she appears. No other actress in the history of film has communicated fantasies of unrestrained passion by simply standing before the camera lens. In fact, the camera is hers to do with as she wishes, just as every man watching this film is. No, she is not fashion model beautiful. This is a real woman, a woman who as she progresses through her 40's is just reaching the epitome of her seductive magnetism now. Emily Watson is this film and it is all her. One star must be subtracted because other actors interfere too often with Watson and are really unnecessary to the pure enjoyment of Watson's fantastic performance and unwavering passion.

Great locations, beautiful shots, good if not impressive acting (except for the exceptional Watson). The only thing this movie suffers from is the story itself. The script necessarily pares down the story to its essence - but a good deal is lost in the translation. George Eliot's intelligence has been all but wrung out in favor of a questionable love story between Maggie and her brother Tom.

This is the kind of production that takes the points of the plot and hits you with them scene by scene - bang bang bang. At the beginning, we are promised a truly artistic treatment with shots of the mill itself and the beautiful English countryside. But by the end we are bombarded with events without reflection and character motivations that are baffling. It's like watching someone write a sentence out on lined paper - realizing that there won't be room to fit it all on one line, the letters get smashed together towards the end so there is no punctuation, no style, and no white space at all.

It's too bad that the way this is set up it forces you to give any stars at all. This was not even a "b" flick; it sucked, plain and simple. This comes from a person who loves every movie, and has a special place in her heart for 'The Last Unicorn' (not that I would ever admit it publicly.) My main point in saying that is this: although I don't have very discriminating taste when it comes to movies, and I am more than easily entertained, this movie made me feel as though I'd actually wasted my time and energy even putting it in the VCR. For days afterward I felt as though I had never finished it because the beginning had promise, but the middle to the end was phenomenally bad. You have been fairly forewarned... stay as far away from this movie as is physically and reasonably possible.

I am not familiar with George Elliot's strange novel 'The Mill on the Floss' but having seen this mournful adaptation I think it is time to learn more. What I found most interesting about this little film is in the similarities it bears to Jane Austen's 'Persuasion', another 19th century love story but with quite a different outcome.

Elliot was born in 1819, 2 years after Austen's masterpiece was published. I think it is safe to assume Elliot was very familiar with her compatriot's novels, probably having read them as a young girl. The characters in Elliot's story are not very much different in their social behavior and speech than were Austen's 43 years before. Mid-Victorian England was slow to shed the Georgian habits, though Elliot's people are more open and expressive of their emotions and inner turmoil. But the same sense of honor and "conscience" rules the behavior of both Elliot's and Austen's heroines.

Maggie Tulliver (Elliot) and Anne Elliot (Austen) have much in common. They are both highly intelligent, sensitive and loving women, under the yoke of the men in their lives. They both make terrible sacrifices for the men in their families. Both of them have fathers who are implacable, though highly different in their natures; Anne Elliot's being a useless fop and Maggie Tulliver's a bull-headed, good-hearted man. Both men are at the mercy of their prides.

But this is where the two stories diverge. Elliot's love story veers down the road to tragedy with the introduction of Stephen Guest, a man engaged to Maggie's cousin and subsequently falls hopelessly in love with Maggie. Anne Elliot, in Austen's story, is also besieged by a second man but he turns out to be a cad and she is aided by a deux-ex- machine in the person of her old school friend, Mrs Smith, who sets her wise to the duplicity of her Cousin, another Elliot, who is machinating to marry Anne for her money.

Maggie has no such luck in George Elliot's world. Perhaps this is indicative of the looming tragedy engendered by the growing complexity of human life during the industrial revolution, a shift in culture that brought tragedy to many people, especially in the rural parts of England, driving them from their agrarian lives they'd lived for centuries into the cities to be slaves for the new world of steam and iron. Sensitive souls often did not survive this transition and Maggie Tulliver and her brother, who tries to adapt, fall prey to the growing pressures of "keeping up."

'The Mill on the Floss' seems a natural extension of 'Persuasion' and would make a very nice double bill at home on some cold, winter's night. I can't help but wonder if Mary Ann Evans changed her name to George Elliot out of homage to Jane Austen.

Films of great literature inevitably have to omit a great deal, unless the BBC takes it on and does a multi-evening production, as they did with some of Dickens' novels, to great effect, notably 'Bleak House'.

But this adaption of 'The Mill on the Floss' was limited to 2 hours or so and cuts must obviously have been made. I haven't read the book but there seemed to be points in the film that left me thinking that I'd just jumped over a hole in the ground and I was viewing a cinematic Cliff Notes version of Elliot's mind-numbing tragedy.

Having said all that, I enjoyed this film. Mostly I think I liked it because I love Emily Watson. She is a super-charged Maggie Tulliver and carries the weight of her fateful tragedy with a steadfast resolve. Watson has a deep reservoire of feelings and brain- power from which to draw for her characters. Maggie Tolliver was an early part for her in her ever-burgeoning brilliant career. Already at this early stage she shows exceptional talent. And she's very beautiful into the bargain.

The supporting cast is excellent, especially Cheryl Campbell and Bernard Hill as her parents.

The photography is beautiful and the settings totally convincing. There is nothing precious about this 19th century classic and this allows the story to speak to modern viewers without seeming to be set in aspic.

Maggie's struggle with her conscience and love are heart-wrenching and her fate seems particularly horrible, with salvation seeming to be so close at hand.

If you are an admirer of Emily Watson I highly recommend this film, otherwise I'm not so sure that the slow pace and meditative atmosphere of Maggie's dilemma will hold the attention of those that are not interested in 19th century England. But I'd encourge anyone who is curious to seek this version of 'The Mill on the Floss' out. If you loved Roger Michell's recent version of 'Persuasion' I think you will like this film very much.