The Portrait of a Lady

Many people could not warm up to this remarkable adaptation of Henry James' novel, A Portrait of a Lady. The dark, abusive themes and open ending are not part of typical costume drama fare, but both are true to Henry James' novel and to Jane Campion's vision.

Henry James originally wrote the novel in the 1880s. Intended as an exploration of what a woman might do if she were given independent means, James' book indicts women as being trapped by a weaker nature. Exploring the same material Campion's movie comes to a different conclusion.

The adaptation and direction are superb. The movie maintains the steady rhythm of doom that makes James' novel an enduring classic. There is no place where this is more evident in the film than in its lingering images. The camera holds on to the subject a moment longer than expected, making the viewer a little uncomfortable, and anticipating sudden disaster that never quite arrives. Ms. Campion directs this film like a horror film, which is exactly what it is.

The acting in this film is also convincing, from Nicole Kidman's paralyzed Isabel, to John Malkovich as a hypnotically terrifying pursuer. They are backed by a solid cast of major actors in minor roles, all adding to Isabel's complex societal tragedy.

Portrait of a Lady, particularly this film adaptation, is a remarkable example of how stories may stay the same, but their meanings change over time.

Related films include: Washington Square (1997), The House of Mirth (2000), The Buccaneers (1995)(mini).

Henry James has never struck me as being the most cinematic of authors; his novels generally involve detailed explorations of the psychology of his characters and are marked by a highly elaborate prose style, characterised by lengthy, complex sentences and Latinate vocabulary. Yet a number of films have been based on his works, some of them very successful, dating back to "The Lost Moment" (based on "The Aspern Papers") and "The Heiress" (based on "Washington Square") in the late forties. The Merchant-Ivory team made three film adaptations of his novels, "The Europeans", "The Bostonians" and "The Golden Bowl".

Like many of James's novels, "The Portrait of a Lady" is set among American expatriates in Europe. The central character, Isabel Archer, is a young American woman who becomes financially independent after she inherits a large amount of money from her English uncle Mr Touchett. While travelling on the Continent she meets another American expatriate, Gilbert Osmond, in Florence. The two marry, but the marriage is not a happy one, and Isabel comes to suspect that Osmond is a fortune-hunter whose only interest in her is financial.

The film is made in the "heritage cinema" style, popular in the eighties and nineties, and is reminiscent of the work of Merchant-Ivory and of certain other films of the period, such as Martin Scorsese's "The Age of Innocence" and Terence Davies's "The House of Mirth". Films in this style are generally set in the nineteenth or early twentieth century among the well-to-do classes, are generally based upon a literary source and are characterised by a detailed recreation of the look of the period and by an emphasis on dialogue and character development rather than physical action.

Nicole Kidman's acting career got off to a promising start with films like "Dead Calm" and "Flirting", but over the next ten years or so she seemed to get stuck in something of a rut, appearing in far too many dull or second-rate films like "Far and Away", "Batman Forever", "Practical Magic" and the dreadful "Moulin Rouge". "The Portrait of a Lady" is considerably better than any of those films, but Kidman's performance is not her best, and her accent is not always reliable. It has become commonplace to describe American actors unsuccessfully attempting a British accent (or vice-versa) as being stuck in mid- Atlantic. Kidman's Aussie-tinged American accent is probably the first example of a major stat being linguistically stuck in mid-Pacific.

John Malkovich is a lot better; like his Valmont in another period drama, "Dangerous Liaisons" his Osmond is the sort of character he excels at playing, able to combine an icy reptilian coldness with a certain smooth and plausible charm. There are also good contributions from Barbara Hershey as Osmond's friend and co-conspirator Madame Merle and from John Gielgud in a cameo as the elderly Touchett. (Gielgud was 92 at the time, and this was far from being his last film; he was to continue working up until his death in 2000 at the age of 96).

Although Henry James was a dramatist as well as a novelist, and adapted several of his books for the stage, he considered "The Portrait of a Lady" to be unsuitable for dramatic presentation and dissuaded a friend who wanted to turn it into a play. That, however, did not dissuade Jane Campion from attempting to film the novel. Having recently watched the film for the first time since seeing it in the cinema in 1996, I can say that, in my view, James was probably right. It is, like many examples of "heritage cinema", visually attractive, but it is also rather emotionally cold and too slow-moving. There is nothing much about it which remains in the mind for long afterwards. It does not really compare with the greatest heritage movies like "The Age of Innocence", "The House of Mirth" or the best examples of Merchant-Ivory's work such as "Howard's End". Or, for that matter, with Jane Campion's own earlier, more dramatic and passionate period drama, "The Piano". 6/10

I rented this to get a look at Viggo Mortensen in some of his "other" films. He was beautiful to look at, but probably miscast. The whole movie stumped me. The sets and costumes were sumptuous (I frankly found the sets more interesting to look at than the characters). But this is more a character study than a plot-driven story; the characters should captivate us (or at least interest us) and allow us to come away with an understanding of them. This part failed, for me. Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich seemed to be in a Stone-Faced Acting contest, with Malkovich's monotonous drone matched only by Nicole's insistence on using one solitary facial expression for every "emotion" she supposedly felt. The woman only smiled once, near the end with ill cousin Ralph. What on earth made all these men fall in love with her, and not only fall, but STAY, in Goodwood's case for YEARS? I figured she would be independent and feisty, at least until she allowed herself to fall under Osmond's sway, but... she seemed cold and repressed from the very beginning.

I tried very hard to understand this woman, and at times I could - but only drawing from personal experience, not through anything Kidman offered. And what's up with that ending?? Some people here seemed to get it, but I was left shaking my head, what, that's the last scene?? Oh well, I got to look at Viggo every once in awhile, so it wasn't a total loss.

I vacillate between preferring films that do a simple thing extremely well (Muppet Movie) or those that shoot high and fail. This film is the latter.

Campion has allied her aspirations with `women's' perspectives; honorable and rich enough. And she selects material ripe with possibilities. Clearly she has a vision, presumably extracted from the author's, but she fails to get on top of it.

Part of the problem is the simplification of the book for the screenplay. We just don't get enough foundation for the travesty of person we witness. A large part of the problem is Ms Kidman. She simply doesn't have the depth to pull this off, though she wears the clothes well. We never really see her supposed extraordinary spirit, and never really see how she's trapped by that very same spirit. Malkovich doesn't help. Here, he's too one-dimensionally a schemer.

Campion knows better than to throw in so many irrelevant film-school angles as a substitute for narrative reflection. This film is worth seeing as a study in how a spirited film maker is seduced by that very spirit into the superficialities of style, so is trapped. The ambiguous ending is, I think, Campion's limbo. Let's hope she escapes for her sake as well as ours. We need that spirit.

I have always enjoyed period pieces, good adaptations even more so. This film, however, is really only worth a 5 - an average film - if not for the strong performances of the supporting cast. The work of Barbara Hershey and Martin Donovan in particular is stellar, raising my rating to 6 on their merit alone.

Aside from those two, this film is an exercise in 'almosts' and 'not quites'. It is almost engaging enough, yet just short of drawing me completely in. It not quite makes me believe Nicole Kidman's Isabel is worthy of the love of so many. The love shown by the suitors is believable enough (again, a well acted supporting cast), I simply do not quite believe the object of that love would elicit it.

Still, the film is good. It is a pity, though. It could have been great.