Minnie Driver

(not a scene from The Governess)

The Governess

Review by Alan Nicoll

I saw this movie televised on the Independent Film Channel, where it received a PG rating and ran 111 minutes. The other ratings (R) and times I've seen (114 minutes), such as at RottenTomatoes.com, indicate I saw an edited version.

Even so, seeing this movie was an enjoyable and sensuous experience, and remarkable as a first directorial effort--by Sandra Goldbacher, who also wrote the script. This is very much Minnie Driver's picture, and she does an outstanding job; playful, serious, sensuous, passionate, and distraught, she makes it all work convincingly. The photography is excellent, at times quite wonderful. I was totally absorbed in this film, an experience which happens all too rarely for me while watching a movie.

[Spoiler in this paragraph!] The story, very briefly, is of Rosina, a Jewish girl in London around 1840. Her father dies, and she is forced to take a job as governess to support herself and her mother and sister. She adopts a Christian identity and the name of Mary Blackchurch. The father of the family she serves is an experimenter in photography, played by Tom Wilkinson. Rosina and the father have an affair. She helps him with the experiments, and provides the key element in the process he is trying to develop. The father is conflicted, however, by this affair, saying to "Mary" that she consumes him. And indeed, she is a very strong personality. Eventually the father rejects her. She steals his lenses, exposes him to his family, and returns to London to establish a photography studio.

What's good about this movie? Minnie Driver's performance and character are very appealing. The direction focuses on the sensual, and this seems effective, though, of necessity, slow at times. The story is adult and the father's situation seems well realized, though his character is hardly explored.

What's weak about this movie? Rosina's Jewishness, though made much of in the movie, finally is virtually irrelevant. The characters other than Rosina are mostly mere sketches, verging on stereotypes. One annoyance is that the movie seems to "end" several times before the final scene, which is quite good, though almost a cliche, with Minnie Driver speaking to herself while staring into the camera. I recommend Roger Ebert's insightful review (link) for more on this very good film.

June 11, 2001, completed 3/15/04