The
Governess
Reviewed
by Leonard Heldreth, July, 1999
Had one of the Bronte sisters
written for the movies, the result might have been something very
similar to the moody, passionate tone of The Governess. Written and
directed by Sandra Goldbacher, the film presents the adventures of
a young Jewish girl from London caught up in the life of a wealthy
gentile family.
Rosina Da Silva (Minnie Driver) lives a comfortable life
with her mother, father and sister in a Jewish neighborhood in London
in the 1840s, but her father dies with substantial debts, and Rosina
is forced to find work. Passing herself off as a Christian named Mary
Blackchurch, she secures employment as a governess to the young daughter
of a country family on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Mrs. Cavendish
(Harriet Walter), the slightly dotty mother of the family, longs for
the social life of London that she has never known. The father, Charles
(Tom Wilkinson of The Full Monty and Wilde), a repressed scientist
trying to find out how to prevent photographs from fading, spends
most days and nights in his laboratory. The thirteen-year-old daughter
Clementina (Florence Hoath), who leaves dead rats in her new governess's
bed, is soon brought into line through intimidation, but then the
son Henry (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) is sent home from Oxford where he
says he was found in an opium den with a prostitute.
Trying to deal with all of these characters, preserve
her sanity, and still keep her heritage hidden from her prejudiced
employers challenges the intelligence and fortitude of our heroine,
but for most of the film she proves equal to the tasks. Only after
she has helped the father solve his scientific problem, fallen in
love with the father, and become the object of the son's infatuation
do matters become somewhat overwhelming.
The film is a curious blend of originality and predictability
all carried along by a strong undercurrent of sexuality. The focus
on early photography adds a great deal of interest to the film (at
least for us amateur photographers) as the father races to beat French
scientists to the fixing process, and several scenes of prosperous
Jewish life in London nicely counterbalance Dickens's Fagin to give
a broader picture of Victorian society. The seashore scenes and the
rugged beauty of Skye add greatly to the stormy atmosphere—one
almost expects to see Heathcliffe running along the moors.
Sexual repression is everywhere, from one of the opening
scenes where the sisters discuss what prostitutes do, through the
childish frigidity of the mother, to Rosina's seduction of the father
and her undressing of the son. Some scenes of gratuitous female and
male frontal nudity occur several times as the father is photographed
nude and then in a long shot where the son walks nude from the sea
and lies weeping in a fetal position on the sand. (Would a male director
have used more gratuitous female nudity? Probably. What is gratuitous
for the goose is gratuitous for the gander.)
The film is a bit slow in places and has more themes than
it can possibly keep juggled, but the most serious problem is the
general lack of motivation. Rosina's infatuation with the father may
be residual love for her dead father, but that connection is not clear.
Nor is the son's obsession with Rosina justified, except, of course,
that he's hormone-driven. Why does she take a job in Scotland rather
than London? How can her pittance of a salary help her family in any
substantive way? What motivations lead to the film ending as it does?
The people all seem to be consumed by passions and circumstances beyond
their control, and the viewer simply has to accept them.
Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting) is excellent in the
lead role and makes Rosina's intelligence and assertiveness believable.
This is one of the few films in which a strong heroine takes control
and dominates the action without becoming a male clone. Tom Wilkinson
as the father and Harriet Walter as the mother are both impressive,
and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers makes a suitably spoiled and infatuated son.
The Governess, while slow in places, is an interesting and memorable
film, especially if you're a fan of the Brontes or even of the film
version of Wuthering Heights.
