# Wings of the Dove, The (1997)

### reviewed by
Duncan Stevens

Helena Bonham Carter either has a pact with the devil or some very good friends in the makeup business, as she's been playing the same role--passionate impetuous girl defies societal mores-- for more than a decade now. "Room with a View" was, if I remember correctly, 1985, and the intervening years have featured her in "Howards End", "Enchanted April," and the Zeffirelli "Hamlet" as a rather assertive Ophelia, among others. Though her character is inevitably in her late teens or early twenties, she didn't seem young for the part when she started, and certainly doesn't seem too old to play the central character in Iain Softley's "Wings of the Dove," recently released. Perhaps more importantly, she gives each role life in ways that typecast actors or actresses sometimes don't--each part has its own peculiar motivations and quirks--and her performance is perhaps the best thing about "Dove."

That, however, is somewhat faint praise, because this film is something of a mess. The third recent adaptation of a Henry James novel, "Wings of the Dove" tackles a work whose drama is arguably more psychological than that of "Washington Square" or "Portrait of a Lady" (not that those were action-packed, but you get the idea), and ends up with a pace so languid that the whole thing feels in danger of grinding to a halt. The plot is not particularly complex--Carter, an orphan unable to marry her impoverished journalist lover because of her patroness aunt's disapproval, schemes to have him inherit the fortune of an ailing, naive American heiress--and the film relies on the talents of the leads to hold the audience's interest. But though Carter is up to the task, with flashing eyes, pouty lips, and intimations of a hot temper, the other two underplay their parts. Linus Roache of "Priest" is the lover imprisoned by his conscience and torn by two different attachments, but very little of it is actually apparent; the best word to describe his expression is "blank." We can, of course, infer what he's supposed to be thinking, but it might be nice to get more of a hint of it now and again. And Allison Elliott's dying heiress seems either too forgiving to be a real character or simply rather dim, and Elliott never really gives her understandable motivations. Of course, many a film has ben carried on the strength of one performance, and Carter's is good enough--but she spends little of the last third of the film on screen, and the pace consequently drags considerably.

Softley does best when he lets the camera stay on Carter, and he does that often enough at the beginning, when the film's clear focus is on developing her character. But when the story turns to the triangle and Softley wants to point out tensions or problems, he resorts to intrusive devices--voice-overs, strange camera angles, inexplicably poor lighting--that distract from the story. After all, a psychological drama is interesting because of the characters, and holds our attention only if the characters are compelling; direction that takes the audience's attention away fromt he performers doesn't help. Particularly emblematic in that repsect is s scene toward the end, after the heiress' death; yes, a gondola hearse in Venice is a striking picture, but it also might have been nice to get a look at Roache during that scene, even if all we're going to get is more blankness. There are some skillful moments, notably one where Carter and Raoche pass each other in a stairwell and the camera trades angles repeatedly, but Softley calls attention to himself too often. Perhaps the worst example is the transition from the clinic where Elliott goes for treatment--Softley makes the transition out of the scene by zooming in on an object and turning it into another object in a new scene, but the new scene has nothing to do with anything and serves only as a flimsy transition into an entirely different scene. Clever camerawork is all very well, but it should aid, not impede, the story.

"Wings of the Dove" certainly looks good. The pitch for a costume design Oscar is fairly obvious (how often does costume design make it into the opening credits?) and it even seems that Carter's elaborate dresses and hats become shabbier as her spirits sink. One particularly well-mounted sequence follows the three in a pair of gondolas through a long series of tunnels: there, and elsewhere, the languid quality of the life the people lead translates well into the feel of the film itself.

As with "Washington Square," the story here centers on ambiguous motivations, and the ambiguity gives the drama whatever force it has. But the problem here is that the chemistry between Carter and Roache is less than strong, and thus it wouldn't feel particularly significant if their relationship took an unexpected turn. Put another way, his commitment to her seems lukewarm from the beginning--perhaps there's supposed to be something there that Roache's underacting doesn't convey--and a change in his affections doesn't feel like all that dramatic a development. The erotic element of their relationship, though it gets a lot of camera time--starting with a scene in an elevator in Carter's dream in the beginning, a scene which she (in her own dream) halts--is not particularly well developed, and if the intent was to portray unbridled passion, it doesn't quite work (and it's hardly what James had in mind). One scene where Carter is bewailing her separation from Roache gets a gratuitous little touch when the camera moves from her to the empty pillow next to her and stays there, as it to say "Ha! That's what this is REALLY about!" But the story is more interesting as a tale of three characters struggling to understand each other than as a collection of frustrated desires, and the quasi-erotic bits that Softley throws in are not highlights. Paradoxically, though, the one sex scene in the film is done with some intelligence--it isn't interchangeable with any other such scene, for one thing-- and captures something of the rift between the characters involved. Even if the idea of depicting such a scene would have been anathema to James, it does provide a measure of resolution.

"Wings of the Dove" is certainly not a dreadful film; there are some memorable scenes and some snappy dialogue, and Carter's performance is consistently strong. But even at 105 minutes, relatively short these days, it feels long and drawn-out; it often takes three scenes to convey what could have been done in one. Whatever its merits, the appeal of "Dove" will likely be lost on all but the most die-hard of period piece fans.

    Duncan Stevens
    d-stevens@nwu.edu
    312-654-0280

The room is as you left it; your last touch-- A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself As saintly--hallows now each simple thing, Hallows and glorifies, and glows between The dust's gray fingers, like a shielded light.

--from "Interim," by Edna St. Vincent Millay

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews