The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

I remember going to see this movie with a boyfriend back in 1997. I wanted to see this movie because I thought it would be romantic. I practically had to drag my boyfriend to see it with me, he laughed and slept thru most of it, while I tried desperately to understand the plot of the story. Nothing in this movie captured my interest!! I was so disappointed when I left the theater, I was tempted to ask for a refund!!!! I have even thought about renting the movie, if just to see if my understanding of the plot will become clear, but afraid it will only leave me feeling angry and unfulfilled. I can't give this film a good, not even a mediocre rating.

Fmovies: How can Henry James' novella "Turn Of The Screw" swallow me in whole while I find his other work wordy and arrogant? And how can the same director that has made the two most boring movies I have ever seen, "Two Friends" and this one, also be the same person behind "Sweetie" and "Holy Smoke" - the two finest examples of a movie drawing real characters in real places I have ever seen? This film left me in a state of semi-paralysis.

Being a fan of slow-paced, foreign, and period piece movies, I was pretty surprised at how much this movie bored me. I'm writing this review to try to sort out my feelings of bewilderment.

I think one problem is the use of John Malkovich. We've seen him soar to great heights in the paradoxical "Being John Malkovich" and "The Glass Menagerie", but here his monotone is overly droll and predictable, almost as if he is playing off himself in a Saturday Night Live sketch. In fact the most enjoyable part of this movie was the scene where Mr. Malkovich twirls the umbrella in an ambiguously literal attempt to hypnotize Isabel. If only there were more of these elements in the film....

Then there's Nicole Kidman, whose underachieving attempts at acting has managed to ruin films by not one but two of the greats: Ms. Campion and Stanley Kubrick. Her delivery was similar to Gwyneth Paltrow's in "Mr. Ripley" -- obviously lost. She's just another pretty face thrown into a role of substance after receiving excessive amounts of hype. Watching them act gives me the same feeling I get watching the members of Milli Vanilli try to sing. In their element, they can be undeniably sexy or cute, but in deeper roles the viewer is left completely clueless to their characters' motives. Is Isabel supposed to be docile, alluring, witty, in-control, charismatic, or not-in-control? We can't tell.

In this mess, Barbara Hershey and Martin Donovan as the sickly cousin were both very good. But alongside the weak link Kidman there was little they could do. And Campion made some extremely unusual stylistic sidetracks, the very sidetracks that work in the Holy Smoke India scenes. But in a period piece the fading dream suitors, inexplicable intro, and Chaplin filters seemed inappropriate, although one has to admire her for trying. Even when I don't agree with her methods I respect her sense of adventure (but let's face it, I'll love her forever because of Sweetie). With a little more humility from Campion, a different Isabel, and a more invigorated Malkovich this film might have worked.

For a good treatment of James, try to scare up a copy of the 1961 film The Innocents.

"Portrait of a Lady" is one of the most beautiful films I have seen in a while. The acting is superb. The cinematography, well executed. The film, a stunning period piece from the book of the same title, is thoughtful and bittersweet, but full of hope. This fabulous film from director Jane Campion is one of few that have made me weep with tears of mingled joy and sadness. Nicole Kidman gives an oscar-worthy performance, playing the independent, strong-minded Isabel Archer who becomes trapped in a stifling marriage, with admirers around her at every corner to remind her of her bad decision, while her personality slowly wilts and fades. John Malcovitch plays her cruel and controlling husband, and is absolutely fascinating to watch as he subtly bends Isabel to his will. Viggo Mortensen, in one of his best performances, is in his element as the kind and loving admirerer of Isabel, Caspar Goodwood. Isabel's future lies in her own hands, if she has the courage to take a chance. "Portrait of a Lady" is a fascinating and riveting film, full of deep emotions that will move and touch you. A wonderful film that is sublime in all ways possible.

The Portrait of a Lady fmovies. I vacillate between preferring films that do a simple thing extremely well (Muppet Movie) or those that shoot high and fail. This film is the latter.

Campion has allied her aspirations with `women's' perspectives; honorable and rich enough. And she selects material ripe with possibilities. Clearly she has a vision, presumably extracted from the author's, but she fails to get on top of it.

Part of the problem is the simplification of the book for the screenplay. We just don't get enough foundation for the travesty of person we witness. A large part of the problem is Ms Kidman. She simply doesn't have the depth to pull this off, though she wears the clothes well. We never really see her supposed extraordinary spirit, and never really see how she's trapped by that very same spirit. Malkovich doesn't help. Here, he's too one-dimensionally a schemer.

Campion knows better than to throw in so many irrelevant film-school angles as a substitute for narrative reflection. This film is worth seeing as a study in how a spirited film maker is seduced by that very spirit into the superficialities of style, so is trapped. The ambiguous ending is, I think, Campion's limbo. Let's hope she escapes for her sake as well as ours. We need that spirit.

I did not really like the movie, at first. Nice, okay, but that was all, I thought.. Meanwhile I read the novel, watched the film again and again... And I love it more and more! Okay, NOTHING compares to "The Piano", but it's simply stunning.

Jane Campion (what a director!) tells the fascinating story of Isabel in unforgettable pictures and very true to the original novel of Henry James. Nicole Kidman is just made to play the main-character and the whole cast is without exception astonishing and powerful.

Kilar's musical score... A dream! Ardent, subtle themes, flowing and catchy. But not only that: The film succeeded in picking out the two most beautiful Piano-Pieces Franz Schubert ever composed; and melts story, pictures and music perfectly together.

To all the people who don't like or even hate "The Portrait of a Lady": I'd like to point out, it is a masterpiece! Point.

Watch it in a rainy afternoon, listen closely to the music and check out the - without a doubt - most beautiful ending of film-history!

Thank you.

Just three years after `The Piano', itself a well thought out and carefully prepared film, Jane Campion comes up with an adaptation of a Henry James novel that deserves just about the highest possible accolade. `The Portrait of a Lady' not only showed exquisite care in preparing the scenes of fragments of late 19th Century England and Italy and an accurate eye for the costumes, as well as some first class performances from the actors, but also a refined adaptation of this splendid novel.

Henry James, North American, but lived most of his fruitful life in Great Britain, was himself an elegant literary figure whose writing easily overcame the frequently insipid hypocrasy of many Victorian era writers. He was able to hold an elegant story-line whilst obeying the formulas of the times, whereas many other novelists of the times could not, or changed literary formulas – for example Dickens, and of course later Joseph Conrad (who was not British, anyway). However, his novels would seem to defy easy adaptation to celluloid: Jane Campion and Laura Jones have pulled off one of the greatest feats ever in the cinematographic world. Very few literary delights are lost as the dialogues are scintillating, witty, or just simply elegant. Added to that, our old friend Sir John Gielgud plays his small part with that extreme tenderness which only old age and experience can lend; John Malkovich in this film shows that in many others he has been miscast: under Jane Campion's orders he offers here a tremendous reading and understanding of the characteriology of Gilbert Osmond which James himself would have enjoyed seeing. Simply superb. Which I imagine is exactly what Jane Campion sought. Barbara Hershey was evidently inspired by this perhaps somewhat feminist interpretation of the novel, though by no means can we say that this was not what James intended; she was magnificent in her secondary rôle and well deserved her Oscar (though if you push me I suppose this film should have won all of the Oscars on offer in 1996……….but it is not important, anyway).

And……hm: Nicole Kidman? Forsooth, young man – this creature can actually act; Ms Kidman is not limited to simply being the lovely young lady accompanying the leading actor, whoever he may be, as she has so often been doing in other films: she also needed Jane Campion's inspiration to produce what surely must be her best performance to date.

Wojciech Kilar's music is superb, beautifully synchronised with the film, offering rich orchestral tones, and the pieces of Schubert on the piano were well chosen, in line with everything else in this film. There were certain other fragments of music which I was not able to identify and may have been by Kilar himself. The music offered that final touch that elevated some moments to the heights of a poetic rhapsody. Stuart Drybergh's photography joined these sonorous accompaniments, soaring to supreme and wondrous revelations, visual aspects reaching state of the art perfection. Never have I seen so clearly in a film, to give but one example, the real difference in light on a sunny day in England and a sunny day in ItalyÂ…Â…Â…..

The New Zealand directress (sic, sorry) Jane Campion has carried out a masterpiece comparable with `Fanny och Alexander' that great film by the unique Ingmar Bergman. She accomplished with admirable precision and style exactly what Martin Scorsese failed miserably at with his `The Age of Innocence' (1993)(qv). I am expecting great things from Ms Campion: she is not yet 50,