I would agree with many of the other posts that all the performances in this film are uniformly superb, also that as a subtle drama, dealing with complex themes the film works very well. In some superficial ways the film deals with obsession, not unlike that shown in Fatal Attraction, but in a much more morally complex way.
However, the portrait of an elderly embittered lesbian is not unlike that contained in The Killing of Sister George back in the sixties, an although not wishing to criticise the film, it makes me wonder how far we have moved on from that decade. Jennie Olson's excellent "The Queer Movie poster Book" charts the way in which films about homosexuality, forever showed portraits of lonely gay men and women, in agony over a love that wasn't accepted, and the posters for these films often have a vivid crack down the middle to suggest mental illness. Maybe there is a wiff of this in this film, although I would accept it is not just a film about homosexual desire.
To me the film is about three relationships, only two of which are really deliniated in any detail. The first is the relationship between the young schoolteacher and the underage schoolboy. To me, and I may be misreading, the relationship comes over as quite natural in the way that it is shot. They boy...a few months off sixteen isn't exploited and seems to know what he is doing. When the press descend on Blanchett like a pack, it comes as a bit of a shock. In contrast the feelings Dench's character has for Blanchett seem very unatuaral because she is so vinigarry and because of course Blanchette doesn't welcome them and isn't remotely so inclined.
Thankfully at the end of the film the "bunny boiling" doesn't reach the heights it does in Fatal Attraction, and without giving anything away, the film has a fairly muted and even handed ending.
As a gay man who is I suppose youngish (44) I have friends in their seventies who had particular problems coming out...although not in admitting their homosexuality to themselves. A key scene in this film is perhaps the one where Dench's character's sister talks to her about her previous close relationship with a woman, almost encouraging her to come out, but Dench's character can't.
However, the portrait of an elderly embittered lesbian is not unlike that contained in The Killing of Sister George back in the sixties, an although not wishing to criticise the film, it makes me wonder how far we have moved on from that decade. Jennie Olson's excellent "The Queer Movie poster Book" charts the way in which films about homosexuality, forever showed portraits of lonely gay men and women, in agony over a love that wasn't accepted, and the posters for these films often have a vivid crack down the middle to suggest mental illness. Maybe there is a wiff of this in this film, although I would accept it is not just a film about homosexual desire.
To me the film is about three relationships, only two of which are really deliniated in any detail. The first is the relationship between the young schoolteacher and the underage schoolboy. To me, and I may be misreading, the relationship comes over as quite natural in the way that it is shot. They boy...a few months off sixteen isn't exploited and seems to know what he is doing. When the press descend on Blanchett like a pack, it comes as a bit of a shock. In contrast the feelings Dench's character has for Blanchett seem very unatuaral because she is so vinigarry and because of course Blanchette doesn't welcome them and isn't remotely so inclined.
Thankfully at the end of the film the "bunny boiling" doesn't reach the heights it does in Fatal Attraction, and without giving anything away, the film has a fairly muted and even handed ending.
As a gay man who is I suppose youngish (44) I have friends in their seventies who had particular problems coming out...although not in admitting their homosexuality to themselves. A key scene in this film is perhaps the one where Dench's character's sister talks to her about her previous close relationship with a woman, almost encouraging her to come out, but Dench's character can't.