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The movie has a very methodical pace, which sometimes verges on sluggish. Explore Kim Masterss board 'Effie Gray', followed by 415 people on Pinterest. Delayed release is its watchword: filmed in 2011, it was held up by two separate copyright disputes.
Ending before Effie and Millais’s 1855 nuptials, however, Effie Gray lacks a passionate catharsis. The piece is doubly important in the movie because it was created by Millais (played by Tom Sturridge), the iconoclast artist that John championed - at least until Millais fell for Effie. Millais sympathizes with Effie, and she fantasizes about lying beneath himand resolves to leave Ruskin and his monstrous parents. We see close-ups of the painting “Ophelia” on multiple occasions, the camera zooming in on the details of Hamlet’s neglected paramour just as she’s about to drown. Starring: Dakota Fanning, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters. While the movie excels at portraying alienation, the tactics can seem conspicuous. Trapped in a loveless marriage, the young wife of Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin finds herself falling for an artist and looking for a way out. More troubling, he has some obsession with the myth of Apollo and Daphne and its message about purity: Daphne would rather turn into a tree than give in to Apollo’s sexual advances. Once the newlyweds get home, to a house John shares with his parents, his mother escorts him to the bathtub while his father tells Effie: “She’s been waiting to get her hands on him.” (A handsy mother-in-law turns out to be just as creepy as a wicked stepmother.) And when Effie disrobes that first night, her husband walks away in disgust. She has a restrained acting style, which works for a story about the restrictive era and its suffocating decorum.Įffie actually falls in love with John (British actor Greg Wise), but red flags start flying almost as soon as they’re married. And if remaining low-energy is the goal, the casting of Dakota Fanning as the lead is spot-on. The movie, written by Emma Thompson and directed by Richard Laxton, is much more interested in demonstrating Effie’s oppressive isolation than anything else. Meanwhile, a knight in shining armor appeared in the guise of painter Everett Millais, creating a love triangle that really got tongues wagging.įor a story that shocked the society of the day, “Effie Gray” is anything but sensational. He moved her into his London home with his wretched parents and proceeded to either berate her or ignore her entirely while - most titillating for Victorian-era gossips - never actually consummating the marriage. Once upon a time there was a Scottish girl, Effie, who was married off at 19 to John Ruskin, a prominent 19th-century writer and art critic. “ Effie Gray” is such a deranged story that it makes sense to frame it as a fairy tale, even though it’s based on real events.