FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
LADIES LAVENDER
Looking out of her window onto the beach below her home, Ursula Widdington
spies a washed-up body. She and her sister Janet discover the
castaway is still alive. The young man, Andrea (Daniel Bruhl), is
barely out of his teens and doesn’t speak English. While
convalescing in their home on the Cornwall coast, he
inadvertently gains control of the household. Who takes care of
him becomes a point of contention between the two spinsters. “I
was the one who saw him first,” pouts Ursula. Likewise, Janet
resents her sister’s efforts to teach the man English. But unlike
Janet, Ursula has never been in love.
The opening slow-motion shots of the two women frolicking on a sunny beach
might cause trepidation. But the flustered and at times fierce performances
by Judi Dench and Maggie Smith dispel any lingering preciousness. Both stars
are playing variations of roles they have played before (for Dench, in
Mrs. Brown; for Smith, most recently Gosford Park). Smith has
countless ways up her sleeve to be haughtily dismissive. As Ursula, Dench
has the more ambiguous role, at one point maternal toward the recuperating
youth, and at another, behaving like a giddy teenager. She's at her most
moving when stricken with panic and confusion.
But Bruhl is not in their league. What could have been an expressive, almost
silent performance is instead taciturn. He's a blank slate. The film is also
on less firm ground when it strays from the sisters, such as when Andrea's talents as a
musical virtuoso arouse the interest of another foreigner, the
well-connected bohemian painter Olga (Natascha McElhone). Writer/director
Charles Dance has expanded what is apparently a slender story, yet Andrea
and Olga's relationship is underwritten. Set ominously in 1939, a subplot
hinting at the villagers' xenophobic suspicion toward the two
German-speaking outsiders is diffused. Dance often
has his characters repeat the same actions - Ursula looks
wistfully out the window, and Janet chides and protects her. After having
well established how Ursula feels toward Andrea, a late-night call she pays
to her patient-turned-houseguest overstates the obvious. Kent Turner
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