Paris has been the backdrop to many a great romance, and in Heartstopper, that’s no different. A school trip to the French capital in season two is the site of an instant connection between boy…. and bookshop. When Isaac Henderson sees Shakespeare and Co. on the banks of the River Seine, it’s love at first sight. He’s punch-drunk in its aisles, wandering around with wide eyes, balancing an ever-growing stack of titles in his arms and basking in the literary sunshine.
It’s not as though Isaac didn’t come to Paris pre-stocked with books (it’s a good job the schools travelled by coach and not air – you could hardly ask this teen to load up a Kindle). The boy’s never seen without a paperback. Reading is part-obsession, part comfort-blanket to him. Books, as they are for a lot of us, are his shield against the world.
It’s not as though Isaac didn’t come to Paris pre-stocked with books (it’s a good job the schools travelled by coach and not air – you could hardly ask this teen to load up a Kindle). The boy’s never seen without a paperback. Reading is part-obsession, part comfort-blanket to him. Books, as they are for a lot of us, are his shield against the world.
- 8/4/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
In Dreams: Audley & Birney Conjure a Candy Colored Clown They Call the Tax Man
A shimmering, nostalgic daydream which plays with parameters of the past and logical concepts of the future, collapses such sentiments into an eventual Lynchian tinged nightmare with Strawberry Mansion. A strange mixture of prophetic Orwellian invasiveness and bubble gum pop pulp, it’s like a marriage of Philip K. Dick and the metaphysical plane of Kate Chopin in what should seem like an illogical bit of fanciful low-fi sci-fi but somehow doesn’t.
Weird but far from indiscernible, the odd romantic tone struck by directing duo Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley (who last directed 2017’s Sylvio) should certainly appeal to those who desire universal themes explored innovatively, and while none of its somewhat shellshocked seeming characters court obsessive interest, in its entirety the film is a rather demure slice of weirdness which succeeds in shaking up the doldrums of cynical expectation.
A shimmering, nostalgic daydream which plays with parameters of the past and logical concepts of the future, collapses such sentiments into an eventual Lynchian tinged nightmare with Strawberry Mansion. A strange mixture of prophetic Orwellian invasiveness and bubble gum pop pulp, it’s like a marriage of Philip K. Dick and the metaphysical plane of Kate Chopin in what should seem like an illogical bit of fanciful low-fi sci-fi but somehow doesn’t.
Weird but far from indiscernible, the odd romantic tone struck by directing duo Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley (who last directed 2017’s Sylvio) should certainly appeal to those who desire universal themes explored innovatively, and while none of its somewhat shellshocked seeming characters court obsessive interest, in its entirety the film is a rather demure slice of weirdness which succeeds in shaking up the doldrums of cynical expectation.
- 2/18/2022
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Waves roll up onto the shore. It’s a beautiful sight if the waves weren’t inviting the woman on the edge of the cliff to jump out and end her torment. The fear of being stuck in a loveless marriage, or even worse, unable to fulfill your own desires and dreams looms over the waves below. The woman doesn’t see a way out, that is until a stranger enters her life, calling her back with just a stare. The stranger watches her, staring at her beauty and air of sadness.
Like the slow and steady waves meeting the shore, writer and director Céline Sciamma has crafted a tale that slowly washes over viewers, evoking the tragic romanticism of Kate Chopin’s searing novel The Awakening. Instead of painting in broad strokes, Sciamma meticulously captures forbidden love through two pairs of eyes that say so much through just a series of looks.
Like the slow and steady waves meeting the shore, writer and director Céline Sciamma has crafted a tale that slowly washes over viewers, evoking the tragic romanticism of Kate Chopin’s searing novel The Awakening. Instead of painting in broad strokes, Sciamma meticulously captures forbidden love through two pairs of eyes that say so much through just a series of looks.
- 3/6/2020
- by Michael Haffner
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The One You’re With: Haigh’s Superb Examination of Marriage and Things Left Unsaid
With imperceptible grace, 45 Years portrays the warping of a near half century marriage by a matter of degrees measured almost exclusively by acute attention to body language and facial expression. As Andrew Haigh’s third feature, the director proves to be quite astute at depictions of nuanced interactions in relationships. Without so much as a single screaming match, the filmmaker conveys the unique experiences and attitudes of a long term relationship, and provides a cinematic counterpart to something like Edward Albee’s famed disintegration into bitterness, bitchery, and alcoholism with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But at its center is the divine Charlotte Rampling as a woman who peels back the thick layer of superficiality that’s enveloped her relationship with someone she doesn’t know very well at all.
On the eve of their 45th wedding anniversary,...
With imperceptible grace, 45 Years portrays the warping of a near half century marriage by a matter of degrees measured almost exclusively by acute attention to body language and facial expression. As Andrew Haigh’s third feature, the director proves to be quite astute at depictions of nuanced interactions in relationships. Without so much as a single screaming match, the filmmaker conveys the unique experiences and attitudes of a long term relationship, and provides a cinematic counterpart to something like Edward Albee’s famed disintegration into bitterness, bitchery, and alcoholism with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? But at its center is the divine Charlotte Rampling as a woman who peels back the thick layer of superficiality that’s enveloped her relationship with someone she doesn’t know very well at all.
On the eve of their 45th wedding anniversary,...
- 12/22/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
While he’ll always be best known for his 1928 silent masterpiece, The Passion of Joan Arc (or for his atmospheric 1932 horror film, Vampyr), Danish auteur Carl Theodor Dreyer had a rich and varied filmography that ranged from 1919-1964. Criterion has remastered a 1925 comedy from the director, Master of the House, the first of his films to be adapted from a play (Tyrant’s Fall by Sven Rindom) rather than a novel. A prescient treatise on domestic issues, the film was enormously popular upon release, but it would be the last comedic venture for Dreyer (the only other being 1920’s The Parson’s Widow). Known to enthusiasts of Dreyer, it’s a title that’s been overshadowed by the director’s notoriously somber works, therefore making it ripe for rediscovery.
A harried yet unquestionably doting wife, Ida Frandsen (Astrid Holm) waits hand and foot on her three children as she goes...
A harried yet unquestionably doting wife, Ida Frandsen (Astrid Holm) waits hand and foot on her three children as she goes...
- 4/22/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Directed by Nick Murphy
Written by Stephen Volk and Nick Murphy
Featuring Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton
No, this is not the film version of Kate Chopin’s feminist turn-of-the-20th-Century life-affirming drama; it is a ghost story.
“Ghost Story” may be overstating it, actually. It’s a story about loss and grief and echoes of the numerous deaths during World War I that hang so heavy on many a British heart in 1919.
Florence Cathcart is a modern woman: she smokes, she went to college, and she reads and even writes books. I'll bet she even votes. She’s also terribly wealthy, able to have a crazy fabulous wealthy lifestyle and indulge in her every eccentricity, including ghost hunting. Cathcart’s earliest memories are of her parents getting eaten by lions in Kenya (pronounced Keenya). She’s pretty much the 1919 version of Lara Croft, without any of the excitement.
Written by Stephen Volk and Nick Murphy
Featuring Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton
No, this is not the film version of Kate Chopin’s feminist turn-of-the-20th-Century life-affirming drama; it is a ghost story.
“Ghost Story” may be overstating it, actually. It’s a story about loss and grief and echoes of the numerous deaths during World War I that hang so heavy on many a British heart in 1919.
Florence Cathcart is a modern woman: she smokes, she went to college, and she reads and even writes books. I'll bet she even votes. She’s also terribly wealthy, able to have a crazy fabulous wealthy lifestyle and indulge in her every eccentricity, including ghost hunting. Cathcart’s earliest memories are of her parents getting eaten by lions in Kenya (pronounced Keenya). She’s pretty much the 1919 version of Lara Croft, without any of the excitement.
- 8/11/2012
- by Superheidi
- Planet Fury
Everett Adrienne Rich in 1975.
When the first edition of the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women was published in 1985, the importance of women writers–from Jane Austen to Mary Shelley to Virginia Woolf–was confirmed and reified. This massive work of research and critical selection helped give shape to the burgeoning study of women’s literature. That year, I re-enrolled in school after a conspicuous absence, and among the elective choices from which I could choose at Sonoma State University...
When the first edition of the Norton Anthology of Literature by Women was published in 1985, the importance of women writers–from Jane Austen to Mary Shelley to Virginia Woolf–was confirmed and reified. This massive work of research and critical selection helped give shape to the burgeoning study of women’s literature. That year, I re-enrolled in school after a conspicuous absence, and among the elective choices from which I could choose at Sonoma State University...
- 4/1/2012
- by D.A. Powell
- Speakeasy/Wall Street Journal
No, it's not based on Kate Chopin's 1899 protofeminist novel, so stop asking. The "Awakening" of the title "Underworld: Awakening" refers to a hybrid vampire-Lycan named Eve (India Eisley) who may unite the two warring monster factions before they are both eradicated by the human race.
Kate Beckinsale is back as the werewolf-hunting Death Dealer named Selene, the role that defined her as an action hero and also defined the outline of her backside via one of the tightest leather fetish outfits imaginable. Take a look at the fourth installment of this Goth-friendly franchise.
1. Frontal Assault. Selene attempts an "elevated" level of communication.
2. Uber-Lycan. Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf? Uh, we are.
3. We’re the same. David (Theo James, also in "Red Tails" this weekend) runs through a factory that only manufactures flickering fluorescent lights.
4. Who I am. Selene has a heart-to-heart talk with daughter Eve in the back of a super-sketchy van.
Kate Beckinsale is back as the werewolf-hunting Death Dealer named Selene, the role that defined her as an action hero and also defined the outline of her backside via one of the tightest leather fetish outfits imaginable. Take a look at the fourth installment of this Goth-friendly franchise.
1. Frontal Assault. Selene attempts an "elevated" level of communication.
2. Uber-Lycan. Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf? Uh, we are.
3. We’re the same. David (Theo James, also in "Red Tails" this weekend) runs through a factory that only manufactures flickering fluorescent lights.
4. Who I am. Selene has a heart-to-heart talk with daughter Eve in the back of a super-sketchy van.
- 1/19/2012
- by Max Evry
- NextMovie
Kate Winslet, Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman are among the A-list names signing up to read 'talking books'
An array of Oscar-winners and A-list stars have signed up to narrate literary classics of their choice for the rapidly growing audiobook market. Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman and Colin Firth are among Hollywood's biggest names to set the trend.
Not so long ago, audiobooks were the poor cousins of the publishing world, particularly in the UK, where "talking books" were largely abridged. Jobbing actors were usually recruited as readers. Now, with worldwide demand soaring, the stars want to be heard reading unabridged books.
A dozen A-list names have already been cast as narrators, inspired by the chance to read a favourite book. Seven are Oscar-winners. Winslet, who won the 2009 best actress award for The Reader, has long wanted to film Zola's gripping murder story Thérèse Raquin but, as Hollywood is yet to be convinced,...
An array of Oscar-winners and A-list stars have signed up to narrate literary classics of their choice for the rapidly growing audiobook market. Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman and Colin Firth are among Hollywood's biggest names to set the trend.
Not so long ago, audiobooks were the poor cousins of the publishing world, particularly in the UK, where "talking books" were largely abridged. Jobbing actors were usually recruited as readers. Now, with worldwide demand soaring, the stars want to be heard reading unabridged books.
A dozen A-list names have already been cast as narrators, inspired by the chance to read a favourite book. Seven are Oscar-winners. Winslet, who won the 2009 best actress award for The Reader, has long wanted to film Zola's gripping murder story Thérèse Raquin but, as Hollywood is yet to be convinced,...
- 10/8/2011
- by Dalya Alberge
- The Guardian - Film News
Celebrities read! They do. I think. Regardless, a new reading series from Audible.com features A-listers reading famous works of literature. The first in the series, Kate Winslet, already completed her assignment - Therese Raquin by Emile Zola, and raved about the project:
“You use a different part of your brain and it keeps your creative juices flowing. It is challenging, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun as well. As a listener, being able to tune out and be taken into another world, an atmosphere, an environment that is being created entirely for you by somebody else’s voice is really a wonderful, magical thing.”
Via THR, here's the remaining performers slated to read:
Nicole Kidman, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Anne Hathaway, The Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Dustin Hoffman, Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
Kim Basinger, The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Annette Bening,...
“You use a different part of your brain and it keeps your creative juices flowing. It is challenging, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun as well. As a listener, being able to tune out and be taken into another world, an atmosphere, an environment that is being created entirely for you by somebody else’s voice is really a wonderful, magical thing.”
Via THR, here's the remaining performers slated to read:
Nicole Kidman, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Anne Hathaway, The Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Dustin Hoffman, Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
Kim Basinger, The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Annette Bening,...
- 9/30/2011
- by Anna Breslaw
- Filmology
Celebrities read! They do. I think. Regardless, a new reading series from Audible.com features A-listers reading famous works of literature. The first in the series, Kate Winslet, already completed her assignment - Therese Raquin by Emile Zola, and raved about the project:
“You use a different part of your brain and it keeps your creative juices flowing. It is challenging, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun as well. As a listener, being able to tune out and be taken into another world, an atmosphere, an environment that is being created entirely for you by somebody else’s voice is really a wonderful, magical thing.”
Via THR, here's the remaining performers slated to read:
Nicole Kidman, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Anne Hathaway, The Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Dustin Hoffman, Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
Kim Basinger, The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Annette Bening,...
“You use a different part of your brain and it keeps your creative juices flowing. It is challenging, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun as well. As a listener, being able to tune out and be taken into another world, an atmosphere, an environment that is being created entirely for you by somebody else’s voice is really a wonderful, magical thing.”
Via THR, here's the remaining performers slated to read:
Nicole Kidman, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Anne Hathaway, The Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Dustin Hoffman, Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
Kim Basinger, The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Annette Bening,...
- 9/30/2011
- by Anna Breslaw
- Celebsology
Have you heard about The Awakening yet? No, not the Kate Chopin novel about female empowerment or the Kate Beckinsale Underworld fourquel about vampire warrioress empowerment but Nick Murphy's period thriller about 1920s ghost empowerment. Rebecca Hall stars as an author/skeptic who is invited to a creepy boarding school in World War I-era England to investigate a phantom boy. Naturally, things take a supernatural turn for the worse and, well, take a look for yourself in the trailer below.
- 9/15/2011
- Movieline
10. I Wish Someone Would Care, "Treme." I had plenty of problems with HBO's David Simon post-Katrina series, in particular the long musical interludes and the narrative slog the series took between episodes 3 to 8. But this episode, which had John Goodman's character quietly taking a page out of Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" mixed heartbreak and liberation deftly. "The ending of the book is not the end," Creighton told his college class, the day of his suicide. "It is a transition -- a rejection of disappointment and failure. She's not moving toward the darkness. She's embracing spiritual liberation." -- Dustin Rowles
9. Sweetums, "Parks and Recreation." "Parks & Rec" came into its own in its second season, finding its way to one of the best comedies on TV, and "Sweetums" represents most of the show's strengths, from its commentary on small-town politics (this time in the form of a public forum), to...
9. Sweetums, "Parks and Recreation." "Parks & Rec" came into its own in its second season, finding its way to one of the best comedies on TV, and "Sweetums" represents most of the show's strengths, from its commentary on small-town politics (this time in the form of a public forum), to...
- 12/20/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
"As unrepentantly grandiose and ludicrous as its title, Luca Guadagnino's visually ravishing third feature suggests an epic that Visconti and Sirk might have made after they finished watching Vertigo and reading Madame Bovary while gorging themselves on aphrodisiacs." Melissa Anderson in the Voice on I Am Love: "That it works so well — despite frequently risible dialogue and a notion of feminism that carbon-dates around the time Kate Chopin published The Awakening — is a testament to the film's loony sincerity and seductive voluptuousness, anchored by the magnificence of Tilda Swinton."...
- 6/18/2010
- MUBI
Treme</i> | Photo Credits: Paul Schiraldi/HBO" style="margin:0 5px 5px" />
Cheers to Treme for marching to its own beat.
As HBO's post-Katrina New Orleans drama has weaved its way towards Sunday's Season 1 finale, even die-hard fans of The Wire creator David Simon have found their patience tested by his new show's pokey pace and frequent breaks for (admittedly fabulous) tunes. Simon seemed to respond to the criticism when he had John Goodman's Tulane professor Creighton Bernette tell his students of Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening: "Don't think in terms of a beginning and an end, because unlike some plot-driven entertainments, there is no closure in real life...
Read More >...
Cheers to Treme for marching to its own beat.
As HBO's post-Katrina New Orleans drama has weaved its way towards Sunday's Season 1 finale, even die-hard fans of The Wire creator David Simon have found their patience tested by his new show's pokey pace and frequent breaks for (admittedly fabulous) tunes. Simon seemed to respond to the criticism when he had John Goodman's Tulane professor Creighton Bernette tell his students of Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening: "Don't think in terms of a beginning and an end, because unlike some plot-driven entertainments, there is no closure in real life...
Read More >...
- 6/17/2010
- by Bruce Fretts
- TVGuide - Breaking News
"The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander an abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water." -- Kate Chopin, The Awakening The second-to-last episode of Treme this season, titled for the Irma Thomas song, "I Wish Someone Would Care," would also have worked with the Wilco song, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart." David Simon and George Pelicanos wrote the episode that I've waited a day to cover because it's a hell of a spoiler. John Goodman's character Creighton starts the episode teaching from The...
- 6/15/2010
- by Karen Dalton-Beninato
- Huffington Post
UK TV director Nick Murphy will be making his feature film debut when he begins shooting the supernatural thriller The Awakening in June. No, this isn’t a reboot of Mike Newell’s 1980 film starring Charlton Heston. And no, it isn’t an adaptation of Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel about Edna Pontellier’s struggles with femininity, marriage and motherhood in turn-of-the-century South. Read on to find out about the plot and who has been cast so far.
- 5/13/2010
- by samueldzimmerman@gmail.com (Allan Dart)
- Fangoria
Kate Chopin's The Awakening caused quite the uproar when it was first published in 1899. Sacre bleu!, a wife and mother who does not want to bear the responsibility of being a wife and mother in turn of the century New Orleans.
I love this book because my AP English teacher shared it with my class in 12th grade. She told us how she broke up with her long-term boyfriend after reading this book because she, too, wanted an awakening such as Edna Pontellier's. My teacher eventually got married to this boyfriend and had a bunch of kids, but that goes to say that this book instilled feminist feelings within me, too.
Edna Pontellier is a young wife and mother who is vacationing with her family off the coast of New Orleans. She's not like every other doting wife and mother in 1899 New Orleans. There she meets Robert Lebrun, the resort owner's son.
I love this book because my AP English teacher shared it with my class in 12th grade. She told us how she broke up with her long-term boyfriend after reading this book because she, too, wanted an awakening such as Edna Pontellier's. My teacher eventually got married to this boyfriend and had a bunch of kids, but that goes to say that this book instilled feminist feelings within me, too.
Edna Pontellier is a young wife and mother who is vacationing with her family off the coast of New Orleans. She's not like every other doting wife and mother in 1899 New Orleans. There she meets Robert Lebrun, the resort owner's son.
- 2/12/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
Very rarely does Hollywood do lady-crazy well. Usually, screenwriters pen female character depth as if everyone is constantly on their period at all times. They assume by having a woman burst into histrionics every five seconds somehow this will earn them an Oscar. Watch every single solitary performance that's won an award over the past decade: either the character stoically attempts not to cry while she gives an impassioned speech, the character hollers like a banshee, or she actually uncorks the waterworks. It's at least 85 percent. But when lady-crazy is done well -- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Mommy Dearest, even 9 to 5 to a lesser extent -- it's potent and wonderful. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee doesn't contain within it a single solitary stable female character (truth be told, male either). Every scene has the actressin' running the emotional scales like Whitney Houston being car-battery electrocuted by Al Leong...
- 12/1/2009
- by Brian Prisco
''Grand Isle'' is a gentle, forthright film about a 19th century woman's self-awakening. A fine selection as the opening night film at this past weekend's Festival of Women Directors held at the AFI, ''Grand Isle'' is a luminously delicate story that should transcend gender barriers, touching all those who can identify with the overpowering need for personal expression and identity.
Set amid the seascaped swirls of Creole society, circa late 19th century, ''Grand Isle'' is an entrancing tapestry of cross-cultural waves and Southern currents. Set on the wind-soothed Louisiana resort of Grand Isle, the story centers on Edna (Kelly McGillis), a 28-year-old mother of two whose marriage to a wealthy older broker (Joe DeVries) affords her no outlet other than familial task-etry.
A playful, Grand Isle friendship with a younger Creole gentleman Robert (Adrian Pasdar) stimulates long lost urges in her -- sexual and artistic pangs that she has not, seemingly, experienced since her dreamy youth. She takes to etching, partially, it seems, as a sublimation for her obvious sexual attraction to Robert, partially, because, she once dreamed of being an artist.
But her somewhat smug bubble of artistic self-expression is smartly punctured by an eccentric, and thoroughly independent pianist, Mademoiselle Reisz (Ellen Burstyn) who, while admiring her audacity in spreading her wings, also discredits her conceit that she possesses the soul and the ''gifts'' to be an artist.
Indeed, this hard challenge from such a liberated spirit is what lifts screenwriter Hesper Anderson's adaptation of Kate Chopin's novel ''The Awakening'' beyond the singular dimension of feminist dogma to a grander story of personal growth and individuality.
Undeniably, there is a discernible editorial slant to this story: throughout, Edna's family life is portrayed as offering not one iota of emotional sustenance to her. In this stacked-story deck, husband Leonce is a merely a one-dimensional burgher while her two children are merely underfoot on the porch. As such, her choice to sacrifice her family life to her ''art'' and love for Robert is diminished by the fact that this difficult decision is way too easy, merely a black-and-white issue here.
Under director Mary Lambert's strong hand, Edna's personal turmoils and triumphs waft together in a swirling succession of conflicting emotions and challenges. Using the soft but explosive colors of Grand Isle's seascape as textural punctuation, Lambert fuses Edna's surging emotional states to the ebb-and-flow of nature's tides.
While ''Grand Isle's'' narrative is transparently blunt, the film is, nevertheless, awash with tonal nuance: cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita's radiant, late-afternoon hues are in sync with Edna's personal timetable, while Elliot Goldenthal's orginal music and savvy score selection, primarily Chopin's Nocture in E minor, lend a melancholy but strong cadence to Edna's resolve.
GRAND ISLE
Turner Pictures
Producers Kelly McGillis, Carolyn Pfeiffer
Director Mary Lambert
Screenwriter Hesper Anderson
Based on the novel ''The Awakening'' by Kate Chopin
Director of photography Toyomichi Kurita
Costume designer Martin Pakeldinaz
Production designer Michelle Minch
Original music and adaptation Elliot Goldenthal
Editor Tom Finan
Casting Fern Champion
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Edna Pontellier Kelly McGillis
Leonce Pontellier Jon DeVries
Robert LeBrun Adrian Pasdar
Mademoiselle Reisz Ellen Burstyn
Alcee Arobin Julian Sands
Victor LeBrun Anthony DeSando
Adele Ratignolle Glenne Headly
Running time -- 87 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Set amid the seascaped swirls of Creole society, circa late 19th century, ''Grand Isle'' is an entrancing tapestry of cross-cultural waves and Southern currents. Set on the wind-soothed Louisiana resort of Grand Isle, the story centers on Edna (Kelly McGillis), a 28-year-old mother of two whose marriage to a wealthy older broker (Joe DeVries) affords her no outlet other than familial task-etry.
A playful, Grand Isle friendship with a younger Creole gentleman Robert (Adrian Pasdar) stimulates long lost urges in her -- sexual and artistic pangs that she has not, seemingly, experienced since her dreamy youth. She takes to etching, partially, it seems, as a sublimation for her obvious sexual attraction to Robert, partially, because, she once dreamed of being an artist.
But her somewhat smug bubble of artistic self-expression is smartly punctured by an eccentric, and thoroughly independent pianist, Mademoiselle Reisz (Ellen Burstyn) who, while admiring her audacity in spreading her wings, also discredits her conceit that she possesses the soul and the ''gifts'' to be an artist.
Indeed, this hard challenge from such a liberated spirit is what lifts screenwriter Hesper Anderson's adaptation of Kate Chopin's novel ''The Awakening'' beyond the singular dimension of feminist dogma to a grander story of personal growth and individuality.
Undeniably, there is a discernible editorial slant to this story: throughout, Edna's family life is portrayed as offering not one iota of emotional sustenance to her. In this stacked-story deck, husband Leonce is a merely a one-dimensional burgher while her two children are merely underfoot on the porch. As such, her choice to sacrifice her family life to her ''art'' and love for Robert is diminished by the fact that this difficult decision is way too easy, merely a black-and-white issue here.
Under director Mary Lambert's strong hand, Edna's personal turmoils and triumphs waft together in a swirling succession of conflicting emotions and challenges. Using the soft but explosive colors of Grand Isle's seascape as textural punctuation, Lambert fuses Edna's surging emotional states to the ebb-and-flow of nature's tides.
While ''Grand Isle's'' narrative is transparently blunt, the film is, nevertheless, awash with tonal nuance: cinematographer Toyomichi Kurita's radiant, late-afternoon hues are in sync with Edna's personal timetable, while Elliot Goldenthal's orginal music and savvy score selection, primarily Chopin's Nocture in E minor, lend a melancholy but strong cadence to Edna's resolve.
GRAND ISLE
Turner Pictures
Producers Kelly McGillis, Carolyn Pfeiffer
Director Mary Lambert
Screenwriter Hesper Anderson
Based on the novel ''The Awakening'' by Kate Chopin
Director of photography Toyomichi Kurita
Costume designer Martin Pakeldinaz
Production designer Michelle Minch
Original music and adaptation Elliot Goldenthal
Editor Tom Finan
Casting Fern Champion
Color/Stereo
Cast:
Edna Pontellier Kelly McGillis
Leonce Pontellier Jon DeVries
Robert LeBrun Adrian Pasdar
Mademoiselle Reisz Ellen Burstyn
Alcee Arobin Julian Sands
Victor LeBrun Anthony DeSando
Adele Ratignolle Glenne Headly
Running time -- 87 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 11/18/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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