That was an excellent one.

Pretty Good

Fresh and Exciting

A Disappointing Continuation

Some actors can only convey emotion with a raised voice. Some can act with broad gestures in the face. But there is something special in Minnie Driver's beautiful face that is missed because she does it so delicately.She can act with her face by the slightest movement around her eyes and her mouth. It is one thing to act with one's lips but even harder I think to convey an emotion with the slightest movement of the corners of the mouth. She has large, round eyes that can look vulnerable or heartbroken or disgusted or all at the same time. Minnie has a way of looking at other actors and seeming to see right through them (especially men). We can tell by the slightest gestures in her face what she is feeling and what she is thinking.This makes her the perfect choice to play Rosina, a woman trapped in the society of the 1840s by the fact that she is a woman and a Jew. There are few options open to this woman. She is an intellectual but no avenue on which to use it.Her father is murdered and in order to support her mother and her sister she takes a job as a governess to The Cavandishs a family living on an island in Scotland. Because they would never hire a Jew she studies new testament and tells the family that she is a Protestant named Mary Blackchurch.The father is as much an intellectual as 'Mary' but his ignorant family falls a bit short of being interested in much of anything. Therefore he spends a lot of time working in his laboratory. He is interested in photography, a new invention and is working on a way to keep the images from fading. She becomes interested in his work. Their common interests draw them to one another. This is not a tired old story of marital infidelity but a story of an attraction that begins with a common bond.There is an eroticism that exists between the two but there are boundaries that keep them apart. She uses posing for him as a way for him to see her and not just her job title. There is a lot of tension going on and Driver uses her expressive face to great advantage. We know that these two would-be lovers won't cross the boundaries (they would be outcasts if they did) but we like to see them dance as close to it as they can.

I enjoyed this movie very much. However, I am still a bit baffled as to what the entire point of the movie was. I also thought that another actress as the lead would have added to the dramatic essence of this picture. Really though, Minnie Driver must have been delusional to choose that mean, confused man over the young and handsome Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Although I enjoyed the movie, Minnie Driver's character annoyed me quite a bit. She was too weak at one moment, and then at the next she was supposed to be in complete control of everything. Besides that, the movie was wonderful and it must have been great if I can not enjoy the main actress, and yet still find myself uncontrollably drawn to the story.

*****SPOILERS*********This movie was truly awful. This woman deceives her employers right from the start and then selfishly proceeds to tear them apart. At the end you see her making a profession out of the trade she'd learned from the father of her "pupil". I put pupil in quotes because the governess never really seems to teach the child anything. She seems to hate her and can't stand being near her. I felt sorry for the little girl who simply wanted to be loved, absent that, it was understandable that she would say and do outrageous things just to get attention but the viewer wasn't supposed to sympathize with the little girl, the viewer was supposed to sympathize with the governess who hated her pupil and manipulated and deceived her employers. I just couldn't do it. This was not the story of a self made woman, rather, it was a window into the mind of one who uses others at every opportunity with no other thought for anyone outside of her own family. I couldn't stand the governess! This was a really horrible movie. I only paid one dollar to rent it but even that was too much!

Driver plays a Jewess in 19th century Scotland who poses as a gentile and takes a governess position to provide income for her family following her father's death. An artistically and technically excellent film, "The Governess" is flawed to the detriment of the overall effort. Driver's character grows ambiguous and the film wears on; the juxtaposition of the Jewish and Christian is overwrought; the male lead is not sufficiently charismatic; and the story stutters at the end which is anticlimactic at best. Nonetheless, well worth a look especially for Driver fans.