And so it begins, the calculations in the mind of a "Wicked Lady". This is the type of delicious melodrama (often with comic overtones) that Gainsborough was known for in the mid 1940's, usually starring the gorgeous Margaret Lockwood. But Jessica Lange's Cousin Bette is not a ravishing beauty; in fact, she's quite unlovely.
Lack of makeup (or pale powder) turns the usually gorgeous Lange into quite the plain spinster, devoted to the dying day of her older cousin, Geraldine Chaplin. She seemed to believe that her devotion would make her wealthy widowed cousin in law Hugh Laurie wish to marry her so she could take over the running of the household. Well, housekeepers do run the house through their master's orders, so in a sense, she got her wish. As surrogate mother to Laurie's children, she becomes a confidante as most servants do, and it's instantly fascinating to watch the wheels turn in Lange's severely coiffed head.
What could have been a complex melodrama of a woman's vengeance turns out to be a convoluted reversal of fortune version of "Dangerous Liaisons" where a poor relative of the Mobility plays sexual mind games with the young, vowing vengeance on the second cousin who marries the much younger man she tried to control after saving his life.
Much of the cast seem far too American in style and mood to be believable as Napoleon era French. Elisabeth Shue, in particularly miscast both in the age of her character and her believability in the setting. The musical sequences, too, obviously influenced by the success of "Amadeus", are seemingly modern musical theater style rather than the proper baroque feeling. Of course costumes and sets are lush, but that doesn't take away from the falseness of the film overall.
Lack of makeup (or pale powder) turns the usually gorgeous Lange into quite the plain spinster, devoted to the dying day of her older cousin, Geraldine Chaplin. She seemed to believe that her devotion would make her wealthy widowed cousin in law Hugh Laurie wish to marry her so she could take over the running of the household. Well, housekeepers do run the house through their master's orders, so in a sense, she got her wish. As surrogate mother to Laurie's children, she becomes a confidante as most servants do, and it's instantly fascinating to watch the wheels turn in Lange's severely coiffed head.
What could have been a complex melodrama of a woman's vengeance turns out to be a convoluted reversal of fortune version of "Dangerous Liaisons" where a poor relative of the Mobility plays sexual mind games with the young, vowing vengeance on the second cousin who marries the much younger man she tried to control after saving his life.
Much of the cast seem far too American in style and mood to be believable as Napoleon era French. Elisabeth Shue, in particularly miscast both in the age of her character and her believability in the setting. The musical sequences, too, obviously influenced by the success of "Amadeus", are seemingly modern musical theater style rather than the proper baroque feeling. Of course costumes and sets are lush, but that doesn't take away from the falseness of the film overall.