The Viewing Files: All The Corsets...

Finally a movie post.  And one featuring a ton of corsets and lots of swoon worthy men.

 

Amazing Grace

Starring: A Welshman and an Englishman

Original release: 2006

Synopsis:  Free the slaves

Good men trying to do good things.  Though I was mildly distracted by Rufus Sewell looking just a little bit less swoony than usual.

 

Yes I am that shallow.

 

Movie is still quite good though.

Dangerous Liasons

Starring: Glenn Close and a bunch of other people we all know

Original release: 1988

Synopsis:  A man and a woman plot and scheme.

I should love this movie but I don't.   

 

Gorgeous costumes and sets and some great acting aside Valmont comes across as such a truly vile and unfeeling man that it makes it hard to believe that any woman would fall for him or that he could fall for any woman which kind of takes away something from the whole thing.

 

A so-so movie that should have been great.

Doctor Zhivago

Starring: Julie Christie and Omar Sharif

Original release: 1965

Synopsis:  Love in a time of trouble

I'm pretty sure actual The Russian Revolution was shorter than this movie which seems to just go on and on and on...

Not helped at all by having characters that you really couldn't care less about.

The Scarlet Letter

Starring: Demi Moore and Gary Oldman

Original release: 1995

Synopsis:  Sin is never good

Long lingering shots and bathing scenes do not equal romance. Gary O tries his best but Demi is seriously miscast.

Madame Bovary

Starring: The actress whose typecast for all these Victorian melodramas

Original release: 2014

Synopsis:  You always want what you can't have

Sigh... all those beautiful clothes and she was still unhappy.  As am I from watching this.

My Cousin Rachel

Starring: Rachel Weisz

Original release: 2017

Synopsis:  Families... can't live with them, can't poison them and take all their money

I'm off to watch Austen  and eat my feelings away with all the chocolate I can find.  Bloody Victorian writers and their depressing novels.

The Invisible Woman

Starring: Ralph Fiennes and Felicity Jones

Original release: 2013

Synopsis:  Charles Dicken's secret life

A little slow but surprisingly still quite good.  Then again after watching a series of bad costume dramas, anything remotely good was going to be a step up.

Good cast all round with brilliant costumes and staging which gives it the perfect Victorian feel of dimly lit rooms, hidden glances and whispered conversations.

A bit like a Dickens novel in itself.

The Age of Innocence

Starring: Daniel Day Lewis and Michelle Pfeffier

Original release: 1993

Synopsis: Love sucks

 

So so boring.  I'm pretty sure a nap would have been more entertaining and that's coming from someone who generally likes costume dramas.

Anna Karenina

Starring: Keira Knightly

Original release: 2012

Synopsis: Love sucks even more

Anna Karenina really is as boring and depressing as I remember.  Give me a rom-com any day.  

Keira at least is lovely as always.

Effie Gray

Starring: One of the Fanning sisters

Original release: 2014

Synopsis: Never marry a man old enough to be your father

How to make a fascinating and intriguing true story bland and boring.

Far From The Madding Crowd

Starring: Carey Mulligan

Original release: 2015

Synopsis: Being free is never easy

All the scenes of her doing farm business or with Gabriel are totally worth it.  Though why she went with Captain Troy I have no idea as Gabriel was far more swoon worthy.

Young Victoria

Starring: Emily Blunt

Original release: 2009

Synopsis: Oh to be queen

Even knowing the outcome I kept hoping for Victoria to tell everyone to go to hell including Albert and do her own thing.

Still Emily Blunt did look lovely.  And if Melbourne really had looked like either Paul Bettany or Rufus Sewell  she probably would have run away with him.  At least she would have if she had any sense.