The Portrait of a Lady
Director: Jane Campion
Year Released: 1996
Rating: 2.0
Not exactly sure what Campion was aiming for with this film, aside from the obvious "feminist" slant novelist Henry James was so interested in. Campion's visual flair is, as always, remarkable in a painterly way - she uses different film stocks and tinkers with the color palette, muting everything - but her storytelling ability is what sinks this droning tale, as none of these individuals whispering about and lying to each other are all that interesting, and their chief plight - "look how oppressed we are" - is too one-dimensional. Costume dramas have never appealed to me, exactly: their themes and concepts, no matter how "revised," always feel dated and tiring (with some exceptions, naturally). In this case, "irrelevant" is the operative word - I passed the time by examining the shadows on the actors' faces and counting the number of times John Malkovich bothers to blink.
