I was looking forward to seeing Effie Gray. I knew the story of Effie's marriage to John Ruskin from the TV series Desperate Romantics.
I was very disappointed by the movie. While Desperate Romantics played the story for laughs, with a comic air, Effie Gray told the story dramatically. Or tried to, rather.
The screenplay only told part of the tale of how Effie married John Ruskin but their marriage was unconsummated. No one knows exactly why, but it seems to be because of Ruskin's disgust with "her person". So perhaps the old story that Ruskin had never seen a naked woman and thought they were smooth like statues, and was repulsed to find on their wedding night that Effie had public hair, may have a grain of truth in it.
The movie shows Effie and John finally getting away from his oppressive parents and living in Venice. However, Ruskin makes it clear that he is in Italy to work and leaves his wife to find her own amusement with Italian officers. Effie resists being seduced by one officer and realizes there's something she isn't getting in her marriage.
However, the pace of the story moves slowly..... very slowly....I kept saying to my husband, when are they getting to the good bits? Finally Ruskin, Effie, and the artist Millais, leave for Scotland for Millais, to paint Ruskin's portrait. At last they were they getting to the dramatic bits when Millais and Effie fall in love.
It was slow.... very slow... lots of scenes of rain and rocks and waterfalls and Ruskin making remarks that turn off Millais. The Ruskin in this movie is so cold and callus there's nothing sympathetic about him. Millais though is Mr Nice Guy without much depth to his character.
And that's about it. Effie goes to see her friend (played by Emma Thompson) who discreetly arranges a lawyer for Effie, Effie invites her younger sister to visit her in London, Effie leaves the house with her sister, saying they are going to visit their mother in Scotland, and Effie serves Ruskin with annulment papers. The end.
Where was the drama of the annulment? In this movie there is only a brief scene where Ruskin and his parents shut the door on the lawyer after the papers are given to him. There's no mention of the struggles Effie had to get the annulment through the courts, no mention of how she and Millais married a year after the annulment was granted, and no mention of how Effie was then not permitted to attend any occasion with Queen Victoria, as a woman who had been previously married could not be allowed in the presence of the Queen. This movie was a missed opportunity that took a gripping and fascinating story and turned the major characters one dimensional. Ruskin is a fruitcake, Millais Mr Nice Guy and Effie is an Innocent Victim. Shame- with a better screenplay and tighter direction this could have been a revealing drama about Victorian England behind closed doors. Too bad the script didn't allow any real drama to develop, and like Ruskin shied away from nakedness (There is a scene with Effie spying Millais taking a bath in a lake. Nice to have some full male nudity for the ladies. Alas, he is seen from the back and from a distance.) There's no risk of showing characters' raw and stripped emotions. There's no schmutz here- unlike in Desperate Romantics, which, with all its playing the historical facts with a light touch, led the audience to really care for Effie, Millais, and art in the nineteenth century.
I was very disappointed by the movie. While Desperate Romantics played the story for laughs, with a comic air, Effie Gray told the story dramatically. Or tried to, rather.
The screenplay only told part of the tale of how Effie married John Ruskin but their marriage was unconsummated. No one knows exactly why, but it seems to be because of Ruskin's disgust with "her person". So perhaps the old story that Ruskin had never seen a naked woman and thought they were smooth like statues, and was repulsed to find on their wedding night that Effie had public hair, may have a grain of truth in it.
The movie shows Effie and John finally getting away from his oppressive parents and living in Venice. However, Ruskin makes it clear that he is in Italy to work and leaves his wife to find her own amusement with Italian officers. Effie resists being seduced by one officer and realizes there's something she isn't getting in her marriage.
However, the pace of the story moves slowly..... very slowly....I kept saying to my husband, when are they getting to the good bits? Finally Ruskin, Effie, and the artist Millais, leave for Scotland for Millais, to paint Ruskin's portrait. At last they were they getting to the dramatic bits when Millais and Effie fall in love.
It was slow.... very slow... lots of scenes of rain and rocks and waterfalls and Ruskin making remarks that turn off Millais. The Ruskin in this movie is so cold and callus there's nothing sympathetic about him. Millais though is Mr Nice Guy without much depth to his character.
And that's about it. Effie goes to see her friend (played by Emma Thompson) who discreetly arranges a lawyer for Effie, Effie invites her younger sister to visit her in London, Effie leaves the house with her sister, saying they are going to visit their mother in Scotland, and Effie serves Ruskin with annulment papers. The end.
Where was the drama of the annulment? In this movie there is only a brief scene where Ruskin and his parents shut the door on the lawyer after the papers are given to him. There's no mention of the struggles Effie had to get the annulment through the courts, no mention of how she and Millais married a year after the annulment was granted, and no mention of how Effie was then not permitted to attend any occasion with Queen Victoria, as a woman who had been previously married could not be allowed in the presence of the Queen. This movie was a missed opportunity that took a gripping and fascinating story and turned the major characters one dimensional. Ruskin is a fruitcake, Millais Mr Nice Guy and Effie is an Innocent Victim. Shame- with a better screenplay and tighter direction this could have been a revealing drama about Victorian England behind closed doors. Too bad the script didn't allow any real drama to develop, and like Ruskin shied away from nakedness (There is a scene with Effie spying Millais taking a bath in a lake. Nice to have some full male nudity for the ladies. Alas, he is seen from the back and from a distance.) There's no risk of showing characters' raw and stripped emotions. There's no schmutz here- unlike in Desperate Romantics, which, with all its playing the historical facts with a light touch, led the audience to really care for Effie, Millais, and art in the nineteenth century.