Quite by chance, British television recently showed on the same night biopics about two famous female children's authors of the early twentieth century, "Miss Potter" about Beatrix Potter and "Enid" about her younger contemporary Enid Blyton. I must admit that I never liked either of them when I was a child, although this had nothing to do with any prejudice against female writers; I continued to enjoy the works of E. Nesbit even after discovering that the "E" stood for "Edith", and I loved the historical novels of Rosemary Sutcliffe. Beatrix Potter's books, however, always struck me as twee and babyish, and as for Blyton I found her works dull and formulaic. (OK, I probably didn't use the word "formulaic" in those days, but when you had read one you had read them all. All 753 of them). I also disliked the preachy, moralistic strain in Blyton's works.
In this film Blyton is played by Helena Bonham Carter, although there is no physical resemblance between them. All the photographs I have seen of Blyton show her as a severe-looking, unattractive woman, whereas Bonham Carter, in her early forties, is as lovely as she ever was. Helena, of course, was once Britain's reigning Queen of Period Drama, although she has now abdicated that particular crown in favour of Keira Knightley, with Carey Mulligan as heiress presumptive. "Enid" might appear to represent a return to the sort of role Helena was playing twenty years ago, but in fact the title character here is very different to the sweet young heroines she played in films like "Lady Jane" or "A Room with a View". As in the "Harry Potter" series, where she plays the evil Bellatrix Lestrange, she gets to play a villainess.
The portrayal of Enid Blyton is this film is a remorselessly negative one. She is shown as snobbish and ruthlessly ambitious, caring for little except her own financial success. She is cold and unfeeling to her first husband, Hugh Pollock, to whom she is unfaithful. When during the war he leaves to take up an important command, she complains bitterly that he is putting his duty to his country before her. She poses as a lover of children, but neglects her own daughters Gillian and Imogen. She wants little to do with her mother and her two brothers. When she wants to marry her lover, a doctor named Kenneth Darrell Waters, she decides that she will divorce Hugh on the grounds of his (non-existent) adultery rather than allowing him to divorce her, and expects him to oblige her wishes.
(There was a curious convention during the first half of the twentieth century that it was morally worse for a wife to cheat on her husband than vice versa; a woman who had been the guilty party in a divorce case would be forever branded as a harlot. Rather surprisingly, the English courts, which in other contexts held strictly to the maxim "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth", were prepared to turn a blind eye to the vast amount of perjured evidence that was manufactured to uphold the legal fiction that no married woman was ever guilty of adultery).
Indeed, the only thing that seems to upset Enid is the rumour that her books are ghost-written. (This was a persistent rumour during her lifetime, largely because people could not believe that one woman could be so prolific. Today, it seems to be generally accepted that she did indeed pen every book that bears her name). Bonham Carter is a very talented actress, and her performance here is a good one, but it never becomes a really great one. Indeed, the script never gives her the chance to give a great performance, because the portrait of Blyton is so negative and one-dimensional, never allowing her any good qualities except an immense capacity for hard work. There are also good contributions from Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson as Blyton's two husbands. Hugh Pollock was nine years older then his wife, whereas Macfadyen is in fact eight years younger than Bonham Carter, so the make-up department also deserve credit for making him seem credibly middle-aged.
Another weakness of the film is that the early scenes were very rushed. In the space of a few minutes Enid goes from an Edwardian schoolgirl to a married, middle-aged author with two children in the 1930s. One of the film's theories is that Blyton's emotional difficulties in later life were the result of her coming from a broken home after her father, whom she idolised, left her mother, so it is unfortunate that her early life was not examined in greater detail.
I never met Enid Blyton- she died when I was a young child- so for all I know she might have been every bit as unpleasant as the character portrayed here. I just wondered why the film-makers bothered to make a biopic of someone they obviously regarded as a prize bitch. 6/10
In this film Blyton is played by Helena Bonham Carter, although there is no physical resemblance between them. All the photographs I have seen of Blyton show her as a severe-looking, unattractive woman, whereas Bonham Carter, in her early forties, is as lovely as she ever was. Helena, of course, was once Britain's reigning Queen of Period Drama, although she has now abdicated that particular crown in favour of Keira Knightley, with Carey Mulligan as heiress presumptive. "Enid" might appear to represent a return to the sort of role Helena was playing twenty years ago, but in fact the title character here is very different to the sweet young heroines she played in films like "Lady Jane" or "A Room with a View". As in the "Harry Potter" series, where she plays the evil Bellatrix Lestrange, she gets to play a villainess.
The portrayal of Enid Blyton is this film is a remorselessly negative one. She is shown as snobbish and ruthlessly ambitious, caring for little except her own financial success. She is cold and unfeeling to her first husband, Hugh Pollock, to whom she is unfaithful. When during the war he leaves to take up an important command, she complains bitterly that he is putting his duty to his country before her. She poses as a lover of children, but neglects her own daughters Gillian and Imogen. She wants little to do with her mother and her two brothers. When she wants to marry her lover, a doctor named Kenneth Darrell Waters, she decides that she will divorce Hugh on the grounds of his (non-existent) adultery rather than allowing him to divorce her, and expects him to oblige her wishes.
(There was a curious convention during the first half of the twentieth century that it was morally worse for a wife to cheat on her husband than vice versa; a woman who had been the guilty party in a divorce case would be forever branded as a harlot. Rather surprisingly, the English courts, which in other contexts held strictly to the maxim "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth", were prepared to turn a blind eye to the vast amount of perjured evidence that was manufactured to uphold the legal fiction that no married woman was ever guilty of adultery).
Indeed, the only thing that seems to upset Enid is the rumour that her books are ghost-written. (This was a persistent rumour during her lifetime, largely because people could not believe that one woman could be so prolific. Today, it seems to be generally accepted that she did indeed pen every book that bears her name). Bonham Carter is a very talented actress, and her performance here is a good one, but it never becomes a really great one. Indeed, the script never gives her the chance to give a great performance, because the portrait of Blyton is so negative and one-dimensional, never allowing her any good qualities except an immense capacity for hard work. There are also good contributions from Matthew Macfadyen and Denis Lawson as Blyton's two husbands. Hugh Pollock was nine years older then his wife, whereas Macfadyen is in fact eight years younger than Bonham Carter, so the make-up department also deserve credit for making him seem credibly middle-aged.
Another weakness of the film is that the early scenes were very rushed. In the space of a few minutes Enid goes from an Edwardian schoolgirl to a married, middle-aged author with two children in the 1930s. One of the film's theories is that Blyton's emotional difficulties in later life were the result of her coming from a broken home after her father, whom she idolised, left her mother, so it is unfortunate that her early life was not examined in greater detail.
I never met Enid Blyton- she died when I was a young child- so for all I know she might have been every bit as unpleasant as the character portrayed here. I just wondered why the film-makers bothered to make a biopic of someone they obviously regarded as a prize bitch. 6/10