Themes: Love Triangles, Social Climbing, Star-Crossed Lovers
Main Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Linus Roache, Alison Elliott, Elizabeth McGovern, Charlotte Rampling
Release Year: 1997
Country: UK
Run Time: 101 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Based on the 1902 Henry James novel of the same name, The Wings of the Dove is set in 1910. After the death of her mother, Kate Croy (Helena Bonham Carter) has become a ward of her wealthy Aunt Maude (Charlotte Rampling), who is paying her dissipated father (Michael Gambon) to stay out of Kate's life. Maude wants Kate not to repeat Kate's mother's mistake and marry someone who is a commoner, and Maude arranges a meeting between Kate and Lord Mark (Alex Jennings), a high-class gentleman who can escort her to the right places. But Kate is more interested in Merton Densher (Linus Roache), a penniless journalist. A beautiful but terminally ill American heiress, Millie Theale (Alison Elliott), arrives on the scene and befriends Kate. Kate notices Millie's obvious affection for the handsome Merton, and she arranges an elaborate scheme to hook up the two of them so that Merton can collect Millie's money after her death. But because of her own jealousy, Kate repeatedly sabotages her own arrangement. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
Review
Iain Softley's adaptation of James' novel of love, money, and deception may have simplified the master's work, but its essence is left intact. Helena Bonham Carter stars as the scheming Kate Croy, who hopes to land impoverished journalist Merton Densher (Linus Roache) and the fortune of another woman. James' common theme of European experience and American innocence, often played out as the exploitation of the latter by the former, blends the fortune-hunting motif of the tragic Portrait of a Lady (1996) with The American's quest for sophistication and romance. The filmmakers have moved the story into the Edwardian age to allow the women characters greater freedom of action, including sex scenes that would probably have shocked the prudish writer. The selfishness and conniving of Kate's character have also been muted and the precariousness of her position as her aunt's ward and subsequent need for money have been emphasized to enlist sympathy. But despite all efforts to give the novel a more contemporary tone, wherein Kate's actions can be viewed as a form of generosity, the unspoken exchange of sex for money still fills one with the revulsion that James intended. Carter is exceptional as the film's driving force, a vibrant, sensual woman, hungry for love, and for the kind of money that will keep her in the soigné drawing rooms she observes with envy. Roache is also excellent as a man too weak to escape his lover's designs, as is Elliot, as the sickly woman finally understands the deal she has made. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Kate Croy lives under the careful watch of her Aunt Maude, who is determined the young girl does not follow in the path of her deceased mother, whose dissolute husband Lionel squandered her wealth in order to support his opium addiction. As a result, there's little likelihood she will be permitted to wed struggling muckrakingjournalist Merton Densher, to whom she secretly is engaged.
Kate is introduced to wealthy American Millie Theale, who is on an extended trip with her companion Susan Stringham, and the two become fast friends. Millie invites Kate to accompany her and Susan to Venice. Prior to their departure, she meets Merton, with whom she is smitten, and she asks him to join them as well.
When Lord Mark reveals Millie is seriously ill and he hopes to marry her in order to inherit her wealth and save his home, Kate decides to adopt his scheme. She encourages Merton to woo Millie, explaining that she expects him to do so in order to achieve her goal of making him wealthy enough to receive her aunt's approval. Kate returns to London to allow Merton and Millie to spend time together and hopefully grow closer. What neither she nor Merton anticipate is the depth his feelings for the ailing woman will reach.
Merton reunites with Kate following Millie's death, and soon learns she bequeathed her estate to him. He opts not to accept it, and Kate decides she will forego her life of luxury to marry him, until she realizes the memory of Millie will remain between them forever.
In his review in the New York Times, Stephen Holden called the film a "spellbinding screen adaptation [that] succeeds where virtually every other film translation of a James novel has stumbled . . . This magnificent film conveys an intimation of what values count the most, of what really matters, but it is also far too intelligent and sympathetic to human frailty to spell them out. You feel them most of all in the characters' unbridgeable silences." [2]
Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle said, "The Wings of the Dove was a minor literary work that manages on screen to upstage both Washington Square and The Portrait of a Lady, two superior Henry James novels that came across as stiff and deliberate in recent film translations. This is a breakthrough for Softley, whose earlier films Backbeat and Hackers only hinted at the style and complexity he displays here, and a wonderful showcase for Roache, Elliott and Bonham Carter, who gives her best performance yet." [3]
In Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman graded the film A and observed it "has a lush yet aching beauty that seems to saturate you as you watch it. I'm not just talking about visual beauty. I'm speaking of dramatic beauty, the exquisite moment-to-moment tension of characters who reveal themselves layer by layer, flowing from thought to feeling and back again, until thought and feeling become drama. Director Iain Softley has made one of the rare movies that evokes not just the essence of a great novel but the experience of it . . . The Wings of the Dove is, I think, a great film . . . that confirms the arrival of major screen talents: director Softley, who works with sublime sensitivity to the intricacies of self-deception; Bonham Carter and Roache, who create a dazzlingly intimate chemistry within the propriety of Jamesian manners; and The Spitfire Grill's Alison Elliott, who, with her beatific charm and Mona Lisa smile, does one of the most difficult things an actress can — she brings goodness itself to life." [4]
David Stratton of Variety stated the film "gives Helena Bonham Carter one of her best opportunities in a while, one which she seizes with relish, looking vibrant and totally convincing in her pivotal role . . . The Wings of the Dove may be typical of the school of British literary cinema, but Softley's handling of several key elements, including an unusually frank love scene in the later stages, is always inventive. Production values are of the highest standard." [5]
