Video review: "Albert Nobbs"

Albert Nobbs is more a parable than a person, and "Albert Nobbs" plays out more closely to a fable than an authentic tale. "Albert Nobbs" is the classic example of a terrific premise for a movie that doesn't follow through. Glenn Close, in an Oscar-nominated turn, plays a woman living in 19th century Ireland who's been passing herself off as a manservant. After decades of cultivating a humble, inconspicuous exterior, Albert seems to have developed no real identify of his own. (I'll use male pronouns, since that's how Albert thinks of himself.) Seemingly uninterested in sex, his only real desires are for security and stability. After a chance meeting with another female living as a man (Janet McTeer, in a hefty performance that got its own nod from the Academy), Albert latches onto the idea of using his savings to open a small tobacco shop. He even wants to marry Helen (Mia Wasikowska), a callow young co-worker, and install her as a sort of business partner and life companion. The movie faces a couple of problems. Despite some impressive wigs and makeup, the transformation of the women into men isn't entirely convincing. It's hard to buy that anyone wouldn't take one look at Albert realize he's in disguise. McTeer, wearing obvious shoulder pads, is even more obvious. The other challenge is that Albert remains a total cipher even after the credits have rolled. He seems not so much masculine or feminine as sexless. The character also comes across as being not very bright. Pair that with his stubbornly mysterious motivations, and the intrigue surrounding this little figure soon fades. Special features, which are a little on the scanty side, are the same for Blu-ray and DVD editions. They consist of a handful of deleted scenes, and a feature-length commentary track by Close -- who also co-wrote the screenplay -- and director Rodrigo Garcia. The pairing is pleasant; I've always felt the best commentaries are achieved when filmmakers and cast members collaborate on them. Please note, "Albert Nobbs" will be released on video May 15. Movie: B-minus Extras: B-minus

Review: "Albert Nobbs"

Albert Nobbs is more a parable than a person, and "Albert Nobbs" plays out more closely to a fable than an authentic tale.

Glenn Close plays the title character, a woman who has been posing as a male servant for so long in 1800s Ireland that she can't really even remember another existence. Albert (I'll refer to him as he from now on, since that's how he regards himself) is utterly subservient, deliberately nondescript and indeed seems to have no inner core to hide.

He's been playing an exterior role so long, it has become the entirety of the core inside.

It's a remarkable (and Oscar-nominated) performance by Close, who also co-wrote the screenplay with John Banville and Gabriella Prekop, based on a short story by George Moore. She manages to show us an absolutely flawless facade -- the tiny voice, the prim mannerisms, the unflappable reserve.

Physically, Close has always possessed a somewhat androgynous beauty (undiminished as she nears her 65th birthday). But even with some splendid wigs and facial prosthetics, the look isn't entirely persuasive. Albert's appearance takes on a certain elvish bent, seeming not so much masculine as entirely sexless.

As for sex, the thought seems not to have occurred to Albert. His only spare thoughts are to money: he's been meticulously saving his wages and tips in order to buy a business -- perhaps a tobacco shop, he muses. Never mind that he doesn't even know how to roll a cigarette.

Then something startling happens: Albert is forced to share his bed with a easygoing house painter who has come to spiff up the upscale but dowdy hotel where he lives and works. Albert is astonished to discover that this man, Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), is also passing himself off as a man. What's more, Hubert has even taken a wife.

Soon Albert becomes obsessed with the notion of doing the same -- not for any sexual reason, but because the idea of hearth and home, with a pleasant girl working the counter at the tobacco shop, appeals to his nature. After a lifetime of fear at his secret being discovered, what Albert craves most is security.
(It seems not to have occurred to him to play it backwards, taking a husband and becoming the girl behind the counter.)

For capricious and naive reasons, Albert focuses his attentions on Helen (Mia Wasikowska), the flirty young maid at his hotel. Alas, she's fallen in with a bad sort named Joe (Aaron Johnson), who dreams of liberty in America. Joe catches the whiff of money about Albert, and sets Helen to leading Albert on in hopes of cracking his skinflint veneer.

Director Rodrigo Garcia elicits consistently wonderful performances from his cast, which also features Pauline Collins as the fussy but domineering owner of the hotel, Brenda Fricker as a cook who's wiser than she looks, and Brendan Gleeson as the boozy doctor who seems to be the hotel's permanent resident.

Yet "Albert Nobbs" can't shake the tinge of feeling counterfeit. Albert is trapped in a maze of his own construction, one he could cast off his narrow shoulders at any time he wished. The film demonstrates this itself, when Hubert and Albert put on dresses and try a day living as women. The result is perhaps the only true moment of unchecked joy in Albert's life.

As for the central love triangle, it's difficult to get caught up in since it contains no actual love. Helen obviously holds scant affection for Albert, Joe adores only money and freedom and Albert regards love the way a whale might behold an elephant it spies upon the shore: intriguing, but incompatible.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Mother and Child"

Karen and Elizabeth are two fractured souls living in Los Angeles, connected by a bond of pain and love that neither one of them can sense.

Karen (Annette Bening) is 50ish, a physical therapist who demands an impossible level of perfection from everyone around her, and herself. Elizabeth (Naomi Watts) is in her late 30s, a powerful lawyer who doesn't connect with other women, and uses men as sexual playthings.

Though in very different ways, these two women push back against interpersonal relationships and intimacy. They live apart from others in prisons of their own choosing.

When a handsome new nurse at Karen's work (Jimmy Smits) makes overtures of romantic interest, she reacts with hostility. Elizabeth begins a sexual fling with her older, dashing boss (Samuel L. Jackson) after two days at her new job, but when he shows indications of wanting something deeper, she slips away like a breeze.

"The wind changed, didn't it?" he asks, guessing well.

Karen and Elizabeth are mother and child, which is also the title of this powerful, superbly acted drama from writer/director Rodrigo Garcia. "Mother and Child" is about mothers who give their daughters up for adoption, or are trying to adopt a child of their own.

The film explores uncomfortable themes. One could read it as a condemnation of women who let their children be adopted, judging by the irreparable wound it has inflicted on Karen.

Giving her daughter away, even though she was only 14 at the time, literally ruined Karen's life. Elizabeth's own life seems well on its way to disaster, despite her seemingly impenetrable shell of self-confidence.

"The adoption thing is so unnatural. Why don't people just say it?" one of the characters says.

But I think while Rodrigo flirts with this notion, he ultimately is arguing that love is something that you grow in time, and is not something automatically granted through a quirk of fate and biology. Consider Karen's non-existent relationship with her own elderly mother, who hopes for death every day.

Layer upon layer, Rodrigo builds his story, adding more characters and relationships, which (ultimately) intersect.

There is Lucy (a terrific Kerry Washington), an ambitious young woman who owns her own bakery and desperately wants to adopt. She and her husband -- who seems onboard with the plan -- meet with Ray (Shareeka Epps), a 20-year-old expectant mother who has already turned down several couples who wanted to adopt her baby. Ray puts them through such paces Lucy says it's like being taken to the principal's office.

Karen has a housekeeper/caretaker, Sofia (Elpidia Carrillo), who brings her own young daughter to work with her, much to Karen's consternation. She grows even more upset when she learns her mother gave Sofia's daughter a cherished necklace, and seems closer to these strangers than her own daughter.

"Mother and Child" is well-made and heartfelt, though not perfect. The story tends to get stuck in eddies needlessly; for example, Karen has a reunion with the father of her child, her first (and one suspects only) boyfriend. The encounter is brief, emotional and doesn't fit with the rest of the film.

I also wanted to spend more time with Elizabeth. Watts draws such an intriguing character, we want to penetrate the mystery a little deeper. The film concludes -- a little too tidily -- before we get a chance.

But that's a complaint wrapped in a compliment: We're left wanting more.

3.5 stars out of four