At the arguable height of his literary fame, Charles Dickens abandoned Catherine, his long-term wife and the stout mother of his ten children, and began a romantic relationship with teenage stage performer Ellen, a bond which lasted until his death. Though Dickens' love for (or obsession with) the ingenue proved intense, and she is believed to have influenced central female characters in novels such as Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, biographers and historians long danced around her when considering the great novelist's life, perhaps out of old-fashioned propriety and perhaps to avoid undermining the popular image of him as a warmhearted elder statesman with only uplift and virtue to share with society.
In this exquisite, moving, and at times disquieting romantic drama, his second feature as a director, Ralph Fiennes dives headfirst into the extended extramarital liaison, including contemplating its lasting impact on Ellen, who went on to wed an academic and help him operate a small school in a seaside town. Through the lens of the relationship, the film poses, among others, two questions: can a person reach a point at which he or she is more comfortable, more alive, when performing for their adoring public than simply existing in the domestic space? And how much does a person (Ellen, in this case) sacrifice when forced to become a living and breathing secret, positioned both as a source of private pleasure and, if revealed, potential public shame for the powerful man on whom she comes to rely? As they betray, seduce, and otherwise navigate around one another, the characters are neither sugarcoated nor damned. Instead, in a film which favors the elegant and the subtle to smashed-plate theatrics, they are simply presented with clarity and understood.
Fiennes portrays Dickens as a man divided: as a public figure in Victorian England, he is a pro capable of orchestrating spectacle and influencing his audience with ease, but, when the people go home and quiet again encircles him, there is a piercing sense of a soul torn asunder by frustration and self-doubt. He is at once a Great Man (whose words and ideas continue to shape popular culture) and a very flawed human being, which is always a riveting blend. More than matching him and delivering a major performance by any measure is Felicity Jones, expertly exuding poised melancholy as the thoughtful girl who falls under his spell and lets her existence become a component of his overarching story even as she senses the problematic nature of the entire situation.
AWell done, Price.
