SummaryNelly (Felicity Jones), a happily-married mother and schoolteacher, is haunted by her past. Her memories, provoked by remorse and guilt, take us back in time to follow the story of her relationship with Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) with whom she discovered an exciting but fragile complicity. [Sony Pictures Classics]
SummaryNelly (Felicity Jones), a happily-married mother and schoolteacher, is haunted by her past. Her memories, provoked by remorse and guilt, take us back in time to follow the story of her relationship with Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) with whom she discovered an exciting but fragile complicity. [Sony Pictures Classics]
The Invisible Woman is an exceptional film about love, longing and regret. It's further proof, if proof were needed, that classic filmmaking done with passion, sensitivity and intelligence results in cinema fully capable of blowing you away.
This is a classic. Great story, intriguing film in conclusion with great performances by it's talented cast. Specifically Ralph Fiennes as always leaves a striking performance. Must watch for all of whom have interest in the drama/biopic genres of film. Looking forward to purchase it in blu-ray format.
This is a beautifully shot, wonderfully acted film about a little-known aspect of the life of Charles ****.
Felicity Jones is incandescent, and does a brilliant job of capturing the young woman's equivocal feelings about getting involved with the most famous writer of the time. Ralph Fiennes takes his time to build the connection between the two. He's a sensitive, commanding director, and inhabits the role magnificently. A beautiful movie, under-appreciated in my view.
Abi Morgan's script – better, for my money, than her work on either Shameor The Iron Lady – elegantly straddles two timelines to illuminate a deliberately obscured life
Very good at pointing out the social difficulties surrounding the Dickens-Ternan relationship, the power dynamics within it and the lasting effects of it.
[Fiennes] has rarely been better than he is as the 19th century’s most celebrated novelist, with his chops on screen just about matched by what he’s done behind.
It’s the subtext of 19th century gender politics that keeps this footnote in Dickens’ life mildly interesting, but it’s a not much upon which to rest an entire movie.
A jewel: the 19th century and Charles **** come alive in this jewel directed and starring Ralph Fiennes. The heavily garbed women, great sweeps of countryside, and living in little houses "in town," and even the poor and "fallen women" on the streets of London come to life. Charles **** too: a entertaining man in real life, not just in his fiction and plays. An interesting plot with sympathetic treatment: how could one have an affair in the 19th century, examined from every perspective: from the great man, who also loves his public **** is a superstar his best friend, Wilkie Collins, the mystery writer, who doesn't believe in the institution of marriage, the woman **** loves, her mother, the great man's wife, the whispering public, a non-judgmental vicar. **** seems a man for our own time. No wonder Fiennes wanted to bring him to life. Felicity Jones co-stars, and she brings virginal purity, and passion and ferocity at times to the part. A good acting company as well. The kind of production one expects from the British.
I'll give this a 7 for now, and I think that I will need to see this a second time.
But at the least, it's a movie that bears watching twice. I do like Finnes as a director so far. [He also did Coriolanus]. I'm not sure I know what the movie's after, but I know I'd like to see it go after it again, as it's quite well made.
Fiennes tries a lot, but there is a superior power and to-be-fair stronger character in Jones's side.
The Invisible Woman
Fiennes has a magic show for us. And the magic is that there is no trick. But the trick itself is the entity showcased in here. The director, Ralph Fiennes is not a persuasive filmmaker. In the sense, he doesn't stand in front of us, up close, with an expressive face. He doesn't want you to get the joke, if he is doing a stand up. He is confident in his method. And ergo, the antics aren't there at all. There is nothing to look forward to or look back to. The film is present. Live. There, on the stage. The subjective procedure is mellow, deliberately. Also, another odd thing I picked up is how there are no elements trailed to follow or climb the ladder step by step.
Personally, I loved this aspect of the film. For instance, usually after an epilogue the film has setup the characters, mood and the trajectory that it pretty much will follow for the next two acts. But in here, **** and a girl is to fall in love, there are no acts enfolding regarding that subject. Now it is incredibly risky to fiddle with a sensitive part of the film, since this is the crux and blood of the entire phenomenon.
If the audience doesn't understand the weight of this lead equation, the film would never work. And Fiennes draws from this emotion from real life. This feeling doesn't creep up step by step in the narration but is present as soon as Nelly played by Felicity Jones meets Feinnes as Charles ****. Those two in the room says it all, they don't have to go through certain circumstances created artificially or naturally to understand that they have fallen for each other. The resistance in the body language and the breathe gives away The Invisible Woman.
Pretty dull. Even the famous train crash was boring. I've read the book and they left so much out, expected a lot more from this. Good acting but the film overall was a chore.
Having recently read Claire Tomlin's book upon which the movie was based and from which the movie takes its title, I was intrigued to see how the Ralph Fiennes, the director, would make a compellingly dramatic plot about this academically inclined book focuses on Charles **** and a young woman whose relationship is fairly ambiguous -- much in thanks to Mr. ****. The book focuses on the powerlessness of Victorian women to control their own lives, particularly young women who, while freed to a certain degree by involvement in theatre life, are forever cast out of polite society. It is clear from the book, without any Spoilers being provided, that Ellen Turnan, or Nelly, the woman in question, lived a life of shadows. The ambiguity of the relationship, her feelings about it, and exactly what the sexual nature was largely make for a very compelling read and remain the driving point of the book. Tomlins goes to great lengths not to impose her imposition of suspicions where fact does not strongly hint in such direction. The movie, is not as true to history (or at least that of which we know). Again, I will avoid spoilers for readers and viewers. The movie provides a viewpoint imposed by either its screen-writer, Abi Morgan, or Fiennes as director. Necessarily so, perhaps, but possibly the movie could have been more engaging with that "unknowing" that remains surrounding this relationship and this woman. That being said, I will that none of the liberties taken are out of the blue but chosen from an endless number of theories (discussed and favored by the author who also notes strongly there is no conclusive evidence for any theory's final validity). The film does provide an entertaining examination of one of the world's foremost authors and his control over a woman who appears to be self-determined in many ways. I appreciate the constant running from memories motif that is turned on its head at the end, so that we see Fanny no longer running away, but rather toward, herself. No longer hiding in the shadows but embracing that "She is here." Again, Felicity Jones is exceptionally adept at portraying the silently warring feelings this woman must have surely endured throughout her life after meeting Mr. ****. Mr. Fiennes plays an interesting ****. I wish, however, the film had shown in more detail the lengths to which Mr. **** went to conceal his double life and the war within himself that he was likely waging. This would have given the actor room to work his acting chops while further underscoring the reasons why Fanny is invisible in history. But he probably is wise in his choice of focus on Nelly. Felicity Jones' exceptional depiction of this woman of whom so much be inferred is masterful. She conveys the constant straining of emotion and agency in Fanny with few words, successfully using her face to show the internal human warring with herself and the world over her circumstances, her feelings, and her desire to come out of the shadows. Her exceptional will to find a way amidst her unusual circumstances isn't adequately driven home by the movie -- but not due to Felicity Jones' superb work. And the liberties taken with unknown facts, I feel, do a disservice to the point of how profoundly invisible her life was until after ****' death and how painful it must have been for the remainder of her days. The scenery and costume along with set design are exceptional. Dialogue is very well written. Structure of the story excellently constructed given the difficulty of how to adapt from the book. Overall, it was exceptionally interesting if not completely satisfying in what it could have been. But I do thank the movie for bringing Felicity Jones' to the forefront -- an oddly gratifying thing for a fellow actress considering Ellen Turnan's, herself an actress in a family of actors) life in the background.