Themes: Social Climbing, Self-Destructive Romance, Sibling Relationships
Main Cast: Mark Rylance, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patsy Kensit, Jeremy Kemp, Douglas Henshall
Release Year: 1995
Country: UK/US
Run Time: 117 minutes
Plot
A 19th-century British naturalist falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a wealthy aristocrat, but he soon discovers that her family's perfect facade disguises unexpectedly grim secrets. Director and co-screenwriter Philip Haas's adaptation of A.S. Byatt's Morpho Eugenio eschews the usual gentility of Victorian period pieces in favor of subtle creepiness. The unsettling mood is emphasized by the film's detailed attention to its protagonist's scientific endeavors, which center on the study of insects and their behavior. In fact, it is his love of insects that brings William (Mark Rylance) to the well-heeled Reverend Alabaster (Jeremy Kemp), who takes a personal interest in William's welfare when a shipwreck leaves William practically penniless. William is welcomed into the Alabaster home, and he resumes his entomological studies while courting the reverend's daughter, Eugenia (Patsy Kensit). Close-up glimpses of insect society parallel this aristocratic world and hint at the dark secrets with which William soon becomes unexpectedly familiar. As in Haas's previous film, The Music of Chance, an unusual, highly symbolic filmmaking approach creates an effective drama, with the potentially detached intellectualism balanced by unusual characterizations and an absorbing attention to detail. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
Review
Philip Haas' adaptation of A.S. Byatt's witty, ironic take on the social practices of an aristocratic family in Victorian England is a chilling meditation on the insularity of wealth. However, it focuses on William Adamson Mark Rylance, an impoverished naturalist who has returned from a decade in the Amazon. He becomes a long-term guest of Jeremy Kemp, who has an interest in science, and eventually marries his lovely daughter Eugenia Patsy Kensit. Drawing a not too subtle parallel between the habits of the insect societies Adamson studies and the barbaric mores of his highly civilized patrons, Haas throws the assumed hierarchy of species into question. As in a Henry James' novel, the characters' behavior is often oblique and their speech elliptical, yet they point the way to an ugly truth that is soon surmised. Rylance is properly dour and dense as a scientist too myopic to divine his fate, Kensit effective as the butterfly fluttering her wings, and Kristin Scott-Thomas brilliantly ironic as the plain, sympathetic Matty Brompton. Paul Brown's stunning costume design, particularly for the women, also plays an integral role in the film's impact. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Annette Badland - Lady Alabaster; Anna Massey - Miss Mead; Stephanie Smith - Dancer; Walter White - Tailor; John Jenkins - Ralph Blackwood; Claire Brown - Child Servant; Graham Glover - Pallbearer; Chris Larkin - Robin
Credit
Celestia Fox - Casting, Paul Brown - Costume Designer, Philip Haas - Director, Belinda Haas - Editor, Lidsay Law - Executive Producer, Sarah Monzani - Makeup, Jennifer Kernke - Production Designer, Bernard Zitzermann - Cinematographer, Kerry Orent - Producer, Belinda Haas - Producer, Joyce Herlihy - Producer, Colin Nicolson - Sound/Sound Designer, Philip Haas - Screenwriter, Belinda Haas - Screenwriter
William Adamson (Mark Rylance), a poor naturalist, returns home to VictorianEngland after having spent years along the Amazon River studying all kinds of animals, mainly insects. William is penniless, having lost all his possessions during a shipwreck. Nevertheless he manages to befriend Sir Harald Alabaster (Jeremy Kemp), an amateur insect collector and botanist. Sir Harald hires William to teach his younger children about insects, assisting their nanny, Matty (Kristin Scott Thomas).
He becomes enamored of Sir Harald's daughter, Eugenia (Patsy Kensit), who is still mourning the suicide of her fiance. William and Eugenia quickly fall in love and lust and decide to marry. Their ceremony is shown as concluding in the marriage bed with the happy couple having enthusiastic sex. Sir Harald and his wife Lady Alabaster eagerly grant their approval of this match, but Eugenia's older brother Edgar (Douglas Henshall) takes an intense dislike to William, never passing up the opportunity to pick fights with him or to remind him of his humble working class background: "You're not one of us."
After the marriage, Eugenia produces five children in quick succession. She insists on naming the first boy "Edgar", after her brother. William never warms to the children, instead spending his time studying a colony of red ants with Matty and various children of the house. He writes a book about their observations, which is quickly accepted by a publisher. Eugenia's sister, Rowena, bursts into tears and runs from the room during a card game, and her husband explains that it is very hard for her, as William and Eugenia have been 'so blessed' with so many children, and she is still childless.
One day, during a hunting excursion, William is summoned back to the house by a servant boy who claims that Eugenia wishes to speak to him. He walks into the bedroom, surprising Eugenia and Edgar while they are engaging in incestuous sex. Eugenia then confesses that she and Edgar had been having sex with each other for years and that her fiance committed suicide after discovering this. Eugenia also tells William that even though she knew it was wrong for her to have sex with her brother, it didn't quench her desire to do it.
William then tells Eugenia that he is leaving her and the children, which he is now convinced were fathered by Edgar in any case. However, he does promise not to tell Sir Harald the real reason behind his departure reasoning that the truth would injure the old man's health.
William then confides in Matty, whom he has become quite close to during the years. Although she denies having sent the servant after William, she does admit that she knew of the incestuous relationship that Eugenia had with Edgar and that the other servants knew as well. William then tells Matty of his desire to go back to the Amazon and not return. Matty reveals that she has booked two tickets on a boat departing shortly to the Amazon. William is initially reluctant for them both to go; despite his attraction to Matty, he doesn't feel that the rain forest is a suitable place for a woman. After she promises to help him in his work, and reveals that she loves him, William acquiesces to her plan. The movie ends with William and Matty departing in a coach while the saddened Sir Harald looks on.
For her role as Matty CromptonKristin Scott Thomas won the Evening Standard British Film Award as Best Actress in 1996.
Reaction
Upon its initial release in the United States, this "Restricted" ('R')-rated film was often noted chiefly for its fairly explicit depiction of sex and the full nudity that accompanied it, as compared with historically R-rated movies before it, which typically did not feature extended scenes of full on-camera nudity or explicit sex.
