Butler's Cinema Scene

Emma Thompson, Dakota Fanning

“EFFIE GRAY” My rating: C+

108 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The Effie Gray scandal rocked Victorian society.

Today it might generate a minor shrug and possibly a pop song. (I’m thinking Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold.”) Ah, well, times change.

The subject of Richard Laxton’s film is the unhappy marriage of Scottish lass Effie Gray to the brilliant British art critic John Ruskin, a man twice her age.

Produced and scripted by Emma Thompson (who won an Oscar for her screenplay for Ang Lee’s “Sense and Sensibility”), it stars Dakota Fanning as Effie and Greg Wise as Ruskin, who often vacationed near her home while she was growing up and, apparently, convinced himself that he was in love with the girl.

Alas, Ruskin proves to be an intellectual giant and an emotional infant.  No sooner has he planted his new bride in his parents’ home than he begins ignoring her in favor of his writing.

His doting, success-driven Mama and Papa (Julie Walters, David Suchet)  micromanage John’s life to minimize interruptions to his literary pursuits. The result is an antisocial man incapable of appreciating that his young wife is bored silly and can find no purpose to her life.

Most distressing of all, John refuses to touch Effie. On their honeymoon she presents her naked body to him, but he’s so grossed out he flees the room.

And to make matters worse, it seems likely that the medicine Mama Ruskin keeps pouring down her daughter-in-law’s pretty throat may be poisoning the girl.

Dakota Fanning and Greg Wise as Effie and John Ruskin

Those familiar with the scandal already know that it ends happily — after five miserable years Effie  had the marriage annulled on the grounds of her husband’s impotency.  She then married the pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais — who had executed Ruskin’s portrait — and they pretty much lived happily ever after.

But that pleasant denouement is barely hinted at here. Thompson’s screenplay is all about the miserable years. It’s a nonstop horror show that transforms the delicate-looking but intellectually adventurous Effie into Poor Pitiful Pearl.

Director Laxton, whose career to date has been mostly in British television, gives us a great-looking film.

And there’s a regular parade of name actors (Robbie Coltrane, James Fox, Derek Jacobi, Claudia Cardinale) to draw our attention.  Thompson appears as Lady Eastlake, wife of Britain’s most influential gallery director, who befriends the sad-sack Effie and provides a dash of proto-feminism. Thompson gives the film’s single best performance, but it’s a bit disheartening to realize that the Divine Emma is now in the market for dowager roles.

Former child star Fanning is acceptable as Effie, giving us hints of the active mind behind the misery (though I’m not sure I bought her English accent).  But she’s fighting a thankless battle — the film doesn’t let her do much more than suffer. We don’t even get to see Effie in the arms of her future husband Millais (Tom Sturridge) because she  fears doing anything that might cast doubt on her virginity and thus ruin her chances of an annulment.

There must have been something in this tale that moved Thompson to make the film. Alas, in the end all is dreariness.

| Robert W. Butler