The Mill on the Floss

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.

Its kind of like walking on a sandy beach, and finding a partially-buried skeleton of some animal. Some of the jumbled bones are sticking up here and there, but there's no meat on them. The book requires a much longer mini-series to do it any justice. Most of the action will be completely incomprehensible to anyone without a general understanding of the social history of the time. The production wastes an amazing amount of time on arty underwater shots.

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.

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.

Engaging, set in a historically rich time, Mill on the Floss (1997) is a memorable walk with thoroughly human characters. As it unfolds amid much background detail, the story becomes somewhat more real than simply an exercise in the willing suspension of disbelief. The film is somewhat kinder to today's viewer than the original novel, with sensible variations well integrated. We need schooling in ethical mechanics for dealing with our own life choices, and this fine film offers an agreeable way