Star-Crossed Loves

I have found a new doomed romance.  That's my weakness.  Doomed romances, ships passing in the night.

Scandal has the pair that I am obsessed with.  Kerry Washington and Tony Goldwyn portray Olivia Pope and the President of the United States, otherwise known as Fitz, respectively.  They are a duo that never quite find peace.  When one of them is ready to go all-in the other isn't.  One is always begging for the other to trust them, to give in to them while the other is angry.  Still, they can't give one another up.

These romances I find so intriguing.  I am enamored with them and with the whole idea of loving someone that much in general.  I blame my mother for reading Pride and Prejudice with my sister and me when we were younger.  We used to cuddle up under the blankets on rainy days and watch the BBC version of P&P and Ang Lee's/Emma Thompson's angsty Sense and Sensibility.  My dad would see the television and roll his eyes.

Flash forward to today and nothing has changed.  In fact, we still watch those same films with the same enthusiasm.  I would like to review two movies that have come out recently on DVD that are of that genre.


Anna Karenina:

Anna Karenina, famously said to be the most well-written novel ever, is creatively brought to film in a way much unlike the adaptions starring Vivien Leigh and most memorably, Greta Garbo.  This writer/film lover/movie reviewer also admittedly has a bit of a thing for tragic heroines (ie. Tess from Tess of the d'Urbervilles) and not just doomed lovers.  

Keira Knightley captures not only Anna's beauty, but also her strength and her passion in a time and place that repressed such feelings in women.  Anna Karenina is a dutiful wife and mother who discovers that both lust and love do exist in the world although they seem foreign and forbidden for women especially.  

Jude Law plays against type as Anna’s stern, older husband.  Law lends too much sympathy to the character, though.  We must feel for Anna more than for her husband although we may disagree with her actions.  After all, this is the man who forbids her to see her own son after her affair with Captain Vronsky.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson (an up-and-comer) stands out as the striking Vronsky.   

What leads to the film being so polarizing is the way in which it is directed.  Filmed by Joe Wright, who shot Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, the movie is like a play.  It is filmed on a stage with moving set pieces and much imagination (Anna’s letter to her estranged husband crumples into snowflakes) but becomes predictable and tiresome.  It also seems like it gets in the way of the story rather than aiding its message and fluidity.  Whether this direction was the right decision for the film is an important question.  Did Wright mean to say we are all just players in life or as inconsequential as moving set pieces?  Or does he mean to show that country life is the only thing that is real not the falsities of city society?  The scenes set in the country are not on the stage while the scenes in the city are.  What we are meant to take from it is unclear and whether this choice in direction was necessary is unclear as well.

A Royal Affair:

I had been excited to see A Royal Affair for a while.  It had gotten good reviews and it looked right up my alley, a costume drama with a tragic romance.

Luckily I wasn't disappointed.  A Royal Affair is a beautiful film that is hard to forget after the final scene.

The film is set in Denmark in the 1700s before the Enlightenment.  We are being told the story by a young English woman, Caroline, who is married off to the Danish king, an immature, mentally ill man.  He doesn't know how to take care of himself yet alone run a country.  This is where Struensee, a doctor, comes in.  He has high hopes to get close to the king and change the country for the better.

Struensee, with the help of the queen, is able to do this but at what cost?  The ending is a disturbing image of how one's good intentions often don't mean very much in the end.

Alicia Vikander, who plays the queen, is excellent.  She is a talented actress (also in Anna Karenina) and definitely one to watch.  She has a knack for making all of her characters relatable and sympathetic.  Mads Mikkelsen (who I am obsessed with currently) is phenomenal.  His eyes are haunting and he is reminiscent of Charles Darnay.

Even though this film is based on true events in history and you know it cannot end well, you still fervently root for Caroline and Struensee to make it.  A Royal Affair is romantic and heart-wrenching, powerful and poignant at the same time.