The Wings of the Dove

Attentive readers may have noticed I've been screening a lot of films starring Helena Bonham Carter lately. Her only Oscar nomination came in the 1997 film The Wings of the Dove, directed by Iain Softley and adapted from the novel by Henry James.

James has been well-treated by the cinema. I mentioned a while back that E.M. Forster has, as well--three books turned into Best Picture Oscar nominees. There are no flat-out classics and only one Best Picture nominee based on James' books, but consider this output: Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians, The Golden Bowl, The Innocents (based on The Turn of the Screw), and The Heiress (adapted from Washington Square--the only Best Picture nominee). Not a clunker in the lot. Even when one considers the strange Marlon Brando film, The Nightcomers (a prequel to Turn of the Screw) one can hope James has had no occasion to roll in his grave.

The Wings of the Dove contains many of the familiar Jamesian themes: the juxtaposition of Old Europe to Young America, as well as the collision between the classes, and the psychological development of characters that was contemporaneous with Freud. In this film the central character is Kate Croy (Bonham Carter), who is the daughter of a derelict (Michael Gambon). After the death of her mother she is taken in by a wealthy but rigid aunt (Charlotte Rampling), who tries to marry her off to money. One of those circling around her is Lord Mark (Alex Jennings), who is one of those frequently drunken upper-crust twits that litters British literature and film (fifty years earlier he would have been played by George Sanders).

But Kate is interested in Merton Densher (Linus Roache), a penniless journalist. Rampling won't allow Kate to see him, threatening to cut off the modest stipend her father receives. The affair seems doomed until they meet Millie (Alison Elliot), an American heiress who is not in good health. When Kate learns two things: Millie is soon to die, and she is in love with Merton, Kate hatches a plot to have Merton seduce and marry her. He will inherit Millie's riches, enabling the two to marry. Needless to say, the ethics of all this are deplorable, and Merton objects, but goes along. Things don't exactly work out Kate's way.

The film is a mostly fascinating look at morals, and though set in Edwardian England it has a stinging contemporary quality to it. Bonham Carter is very effective as the scheming, though well-intentioned, anti-heroine, while Elliott, whom I've admired in the few films I've seen her in (she's great in Steven Soderbergh's The Underneath) is wonderful as the tubercular flower of youth who is eager to drink in all that life has to offer.

The film also offers some lovely views of Venice, where most of the action takes place, with stunning photography by Eduardo Serra. The film sags a bit in the center, with some dead patches that could have used either trimming or amplification, but on the whole it's fairly gripping.

I should add that this film also contains an example of a scene of non-gratuitous nudity. At the end of the film, Kate and Merton meet. She strips, and they have a rather joyless sexual encounter. That Bonham Carter takes the step of exhibiting herself naked--not artfully draped by a sheet, or shot from the neck up--gives her character far more vulnerability. I can understand actresses who refuse to do nudity--they will forever more be on the Mr. Skin web-site if they do--but I give credit to actresses who put that aside and bare all for their craft.