The Portrait of a Lady [Region 2]

This is the story about a young American woman (Isabel) who is just orphaned and is invited to stay with her rich relatives, the Touchetts in Victorian England. While in England, she is wooed by the rich Lord Warburton but she rejects his proposal because she wants to see the world and be free. When her uncle later dies, Isabel inherits a big sum of money and becomes truly rich and "independent". It is actually her cousin, the consumptive Ralph Touchett (who is secretly in love with her) who pressed his father to leave the money to Isabel without Isabel's knowledge. By this time, Isabel has met the scheming and mysterious Madame Merle (who plays Schubert on the piano most beautifully, I must add). M. Merle introduces Isabel to "her friend", Gilbert Osmond, a poor and widowed American staying in Italy who has a young daughter, Pansy. Both M. Merle and Osmond scheme to make Isabel marry Osmond so that he could have her money. Isabel innocently falls into their trap. Despite advice and dissuasions from her relatives, she eagerly marries Osmond and her life after that becomes a true nightmare. There is also a sub-plot involving Pansy's impossible love affair with Ned Rossum (played by Christian Bale).

The accompanying booklet of the DVD provides valuable information on the making of the film and the cast profile e.g. the fact that Jane Campion finds this to be her hardest project. From the movie, it is easy to see that she had put in tremendous effort to bring Henry James' classic to life. Every shot, every scene and every movement of the characters is carefully and beautifully directed and filmed. The colors are so rich, the seem to jump out of the screen! And oh, the gorgeous costumes - especially Isabel Archer's!

The casting is also perfect - notably, Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich who plays the villain, Osmond. Martin Donovan also embraces the difficult role of "Ralph Touchett" perfectly. My favourite scene is the one nearing the end involving a sobbing, heart-broken Isabel by the bedside of the dying Ralph. It is here that she realizes she loves him. This scene is so tender to watch. To me, this film showcases Nicole Kidman's best performance and it is THIS particular scene that clinches it.

I got my copy of the DVD from Amazon.co.uk. If you love period dramas, this is a worthy title to have in your collection. Get the original soundtrack too - the music is absolutely gorgeous and dreamy, and is a fond favourite of mine.


Love and Freedom don't go together   December 27, 2003
Jacques COULARDEAU (OLLIERGUES France)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Henry James was realistic about women at the end of the 19th century, particularly those standing between the US and Great Britain. Isabel is such a woman. She gets into the world without any parents but with a tremendously good uncle and cousin. She is surrounded with men who love her and want to marry her out of love. She refuses them, three of them, to be able to see the world. And she falls in the hands of a social climber, a social parasite and a fortune hunter who covers up his liaison with the woman who introduced her to him, and whose daughter is the out-of-wedlock child of this very woman. She is of course deeply unhappy, alone, brutalized too, and yet she tries to save the daughter from her fate. She fails because the daughter is totally under the tyrannical authority of her father, an authority that is tyrannical only because the daughter accepts it and submits to it, particularly because of the teachings of some good Catholic nuns. Finally Isabel finds the energy to escape - for a while at least - from that husband when she learns his liaison and she can force him to accept. But she is so pent up in her stubborn decision that she can never step back and consider a real escape. Yet, maybe, at the end, there is a wavering touch of hope - for her. It is incredible how this woman, who wants to be strong-headed and independent, fails to see the men who love her and to recognize the man who uses her. As it is said in the film somewhere, Americans cannot become Europeans, and yet Isabel succeeds very well in becoming twisted and thwarted in Europe. Is that typically European ? Maybe. Nicole Kidman plays the role with style, delicacy, dainty and quaint nuances, but also with a tremendous amount of gusto, sentiment, feeling and emotion. She is probably ten times better than she had ever been, now she can measure herself with actors that are not stereotyped. Her freedom is probably the key to her present depth. Is the film a metaphor of her life ? Maybe. But who cares. What is important is that this Nicole Kidman is able to bring us such a marvellous masterpiece, though some of the « special effects » (strange camera angles and mirror effects) could have been avoided to reach a more intense purity.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU


Jane Campion's underated masterpiece   June 21, 1999
16 out of 20 found this review helpful

This movie was completely slagged off by US audiences, which just further illustrates the disaster that is American cinema. The Portrait of A Lady is brilliant film-making. It is a movie full of complex characters, divided emotions and intense drama. Most American's just don't get it. Campion's decision to begin the film in modern day with a series of women talking about love proves that not much has changed since Henry James wrote the classic novel on which the film is based. The film follows closely to James' story: Isabel Archer (Kidman in her finest role) comes to England to visit relatives and winds up inheriting a fortune. She falls under the spell of Madame Merle (Barbara Hershey deserved an Oscar)who introduces her to the sinister Gilbert Osmand (Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons mode)who simply wants her money and another beauty to add to his art collection. Isabel rejects a number of suitors in her quest to be an independent woman. She claims to her smitten cousin that she will never marry, but falls under the spell of Osmond. There are scenes of horror and heartbreak here, imaginative moments such as Isabel's "travelogue" through Europe as she begins to obsess over Osmond's entreaty that "I find myself absolutely in love with you." The supporting cast lead by Martin Donovan, Christian Bale, Shelly Winters, Shelly Duval and the priceless Mary-Louise Parker are superb. The much discussed final scene (which for some reason people don't understand) is a fabulous coda to this film. It mirrors an earlier scene when Isabel refused the proposal of Lord Warburton, and now finds herself in the same situation with her American suitor. Isabel runs toward the house, but rather than going inside, she turns back and the image freezes. Isabel is reconsidering the proposal of a man who truly loves her. What people don't like, obviously, is that we don't see her run back to his arms and tearfully say yes as the screen fades to black. We see Isabel caught in a moment of change and decision. This haunting final image is superb. Get a clue, people.


flux and paradigms   May 13, 2002
James Chong (Los Angeles, CA)
14 out of 18 found this review helpful

i first read henry james' great novel when i was a teenager. i remember being fascinated by the astounding complexity of his characters -- how every one of them seemed to mask his or her own hidden agendas beneath layers and layers of "proper" social veneers.

the Isabel Archer in the beginning of the novel was an outsider, fresh from america, who single-handedly breathed a new life into the stale surroundings of these rigid european social constructs. she was an ephemeral presence, a beam of light around whom both men and women hovered and wished to take something from. the main dilemma that the novel posed was how this young, somewhat naive outsider could hold true to her dreams of bettering herself within a sophisticated european community without compromising her free-spirited nature and selling herself short. simply put, the novel was about a woman who was in a constant state of flux -- involved in a precarious juggling act involving her own aspirations and those of the people who claimed to love her.

with her "controversial" ending to the film version, i believe that jane campion has brilliantly dramatized this state of flux, for in this scene, we see our heroine, once again, fleeing from her options (which are presented to her throughout the film in the form of aggressive male suitors and their various promises) rather than confronting them; but this time, as she rushes away from Caspar Goodwood's embrace in the icy yard and toward the warmth and security of Gardencourt, we see her suddenly stop at the threshold of the home and turn her gaze back toward the yard, back toward Caspar Goodwood. and the frame freezes and fades to black.

critics of this scene are disappointed that campion chooses not to reveal, as James does in the novel, that Isabel leaves for Rome the very next day, thereby implying that she has decided to go back to Osmond and reject Goodwood yet again. however, i believe that drawing this sort of implication would be a far too literal and surface-level reading of the text. in the novel, Henrietta is the one who reveals to Goodwood that Isabel has left for Rome. Goodwood is stunned and is turning away when Henrietta grabs him and tells him to wait a moment. and then the novel ends. James seems to suggest that Henrietta will reveal to Goodwood -- who, like the readers at this point, is shocked at the thought that Isabel may actually go back to Osmond -- the true nature of Isabel's intentions. for me, the implication of all of this is that Isabel will return to Rome because it is her duty to confront Osmond, if only to tell him that she is leaving him. indeed, james devotes some time earlier in the final chapter to expounding about Isabel's inner dilemma over remaining true to her obligations.

of course, this is only my reading of the text, but i believe that this reading helps elucidate campion's decision to end the film the way she does. for although, in the film, Isabel does turn at the threshold of the house to look back towards Goodwood, you will notice that her hand is still firmly on the door handle. she MUST open the door and enter the house and leave for Rome the next day because campion would not stray so far from the text as to betray the facts of the novel (which happens to be a work of literature that she reveres). by ending the film on this moment, campion is at once able to stay true to the facts of the text while dramatizing, in essence, what the whole film has been about: the precarious nature of an independent-natured woman's destiny in a world that aggressively forces her to choose between various life "options" that are really nothing more than thinly veiled, socially accepted constructs. just as the ending of the film is uncertain and ambiguous, campion suggests that so too was the future of a woman who dared to stray from the social conventions of that time.

as an astonishing counterpoint to the women of Isabel's time, campion opens the film with an inspired segment in which we see a diverse range of young women looking attentively into the camera; some are sitting gracefully, others are dancing, some are dark skinned, others light, some have short hair, others long, and all are either smiling or looking content. earlier, we hear them discussing the impact of a kiss and the dreamy, romanticized attentions of a lover. campion suggests that these women are, in essence, the descendants and beneficiaries of Isabel Archer's earlier struggles to maintain her own identity within a socio-cultural paradigm that wished only to devour it. for these contemporary women, the nature of love and romance is a topic that is to be discussed in leisure and with fondness, not a crushing matter that could determine the course of their lives. THAT, campion suggests, is Isabel Archer's gift to them.


Beautifully elegant, thought provoking and maddening.   August 20, 1999
4 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is a beautiful film that will not be appreciated by all audiances. It is not a movie easlily understood, but moves as life does, along a twisted path. Wonderful perfomances from all leading characters as well as Martin Donovan as Isabel Archer's (Nicole Kidman) ailing and long suffering cousin. This is a film for any fans of 19th century romance and fiction. Jane Campion has again astounded film viewers with her sharp skill and mastery as a film maker.