***POSSIBLE SPOILERS***
I recently watched this film and I must say it's taken me quite some time to make up my mind about it. I suppose my opinion on it is sort of split; Emily Watson's performance is among the best I have ever seen in the movies, and I liked the in-your-face pseudo-documentary style camerawork, but the story kind of bothered me.
Now, I know a lot of people who find this to be an incredibly moving and inspirational film, but I can't say it did that for me. I found the story itself to be slightly disturbing in the way it showed sexual humiliation as the road to saintliness (at least for the heroine). It also irked me quite a bit that the husband's request for her to go have sexual experiences with other men and then describe them to him was never adequately explained. Was it him trying to get her to move on with her life, or was it, as a character in the film described it, him "being a dirty old man?" (paraphrasing here).
This film disturbed, saddened and angered me. It showed stupid people doing stupid things (not since I saw 'Inherit the Wind' have I been so angry with a community of religious zealot fools), and the message of hope it offered at the very end (yep, them durned bells) just felt like a half-assed, tacked-on comforter. It also undermined the interestingly ambiguous question of whether Bess's "conversations" with God were real, or whether it was just her being a silly little lunatic.
OK, I'm slipping into negativity here. As I said before, Emily Watson was breathtaking in this role, and indeed most of the actors played their parts well. Even though I have my objections to the story and its moral insinuations, I will admit that the film does possess a raw power that had a definite influence on me and swept me along. And did I mention Emily Watson's incredible performance? 6/10
I recently watched this film and I must say it's taken me quite some time to make up my mind about it. I suppose my opinion on it is sort of split; Emily Watson's performance is among the best I have ever seen in the movies, and I liked the in-your-face pseudo-documentary style camerawork, but the story kind of bothered me.
Now, I know a lot of people who find this to be an incredibly moving and inspirational film, but I can't say it did that for me. I found the story itself to be slightly disturbing in the way it showed sexual humiliation as the road to saintliness (at least for the heroine). It also irked me quite a bit that the husband's request for her to go have sexual experiences with other men and then describe them to him was never adequately explained. Was it him trying to get her to move on with her life, or was it, as a character in the film described it, him "being a dirty old man?" (paraphrasing here).
This film disturbed, saddened and angered me. It showed stupid people doing stupid things (not since I saw 'Inherit the Wind' have I been so angry with a community of religious zealot fools), and the message of hope it offered at the very end (yep, them durned bells) just felt like a half-assed, tacked-on comforter. It also undermined the interestingly ambiguous question of whether Bess's "conversations" with God were real, or whether it was just her being a silly little lunatic.
OK, I'm slipping into negativity here. As I said before, Emily Watson was breathtaking in this role, and indeed most of the actors played their parts well. Even though I have my objections to the story and its moral insinuations, I will admit that the film does possess a raw power that had a definite influence on me and swept me along. And did I mention Emily Watson's incredible performance? 6/10