the secret diaries of miss anne lister.
OK, I've been wanting to post a review of this since Monday, but since my DVD came yesterday (I love the UK postal service) I've rewatched a couple of times and hopefully organised my thoughts a bit more.
Maxine Peake as Anne Lister
Notes:
+++ If you haven't seen the film yet and live in the UK, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer. You can watch Sue Perkins' excellent documentary, Revealing Anne Lister, there too. Both of them will be there until Monday. You can also preorder and buy the DVD (which includes the documentary and also a really interesting, and adorable, interview with Maxine Peake) on Amazon.co.uk.
+++ If you haven't seen the film and live outside the UK, you can drop me a comment and I can upload it for you, as I have obtained a copy from a friend on YouTube.
+++ I've also made some icons and they can be found here (no real spoilers).
+++ The trailer is here.
+++ Anne Lister's diaries were decoded and published by Helena Whitbread. You can buy I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, 1791-1840 on Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com. I've read it and it was really interesting, so I do recommend it. Helena Whitbread also wrote an additional volume, No Priest But Love: The Journals of Anne Lister From 1824-1826, which I have not yet read but again can be bought on both Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com.
Before I start the actual review, I just wanted to say that I was really irritated by how the BBC promoted this - or rather, the lack of promotion. In the run-up to the film I didn't see any promos on TV and there was only one trailer that I saw, and that was shown the night before. Had ralst not emailed me to let me know that air date (and if it wasn't for my bordering-on-obsessive Googling and checking the TV) I might have missed it. I would think that that lost the film a few viewers, which is a pity because it really was excellent.
Now, on with the review! Obviously there are spoilers under the cut, so be warned.
Premise
The film spans a large proportion of Anne's life in 90 minutes, and does so fairly successfully. It mostly deals with Anne Lister's on-off relationship with Mariana Belcombe (played by Anna Madeley from Affinity), as well as her romantic entanglements with other eminent Yorkshire women. At the beginning, Anne and Mariana are very much together, but within the first ten minutes Mariana has ditched Anne to marry an older, extremely wealthy man named Charles Lawton. Anne declares that she will wear black from the day of the wedding onwards, and after a year of mourning Mariana's loss, she starts up a flirtation with a charming girl she meets at church, Miss Browne (played by Tina O'Brien), as well as keeping up a casual relationship with an old flame, Isabella 'Tib' Norcliffe (Susan Lynch). Mariana, however, is still Anne's passion and keeps her hanging, leading her on with promises that once Charles dies they can be together. However, Anne eventually realises that Mariana would never be brave enough to leave her husband and, after a row in which Mariana declares that she would 'rather die than their connection be known', realises that Mariana is ashamed of her.
She returns to her home, Shibden Hall, and throws herself into work, allying with the very wealthy Miss Ann Walker (Christine Bottomley) to sink a coal pit on her land. Anne eventually marries Miss Walker.
(Obviously this isn't the entire plot, but it's the key points!)
My thoughts
On the whole, this was excellent and I loved it. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks and it definitely didn't disappoint. I watched it by myself, so I wouldn't freak my mother out with my excitement, although she watched it anyway and she liked it too (but she didn't know Anne Lister had been a real person until I told her, and then she said she didn't realise there were lesbians before about 1960. I couldn't decide whether to be amused or horrified).
As a general rule, anything with Maxine Peake in is bound to be excellent, and she was absolutely fantastic here, basically carrying the entire film (if it wasn't for her great performance, I'm not sure I'd have enjoyed it as much). She was incredibly convincing as Anne and managed to make her likeable most of the time - which, considering the almost predatory way she went after Miss Browne, was quite an accomplishment. She also managed to keep the balance between Anne's masculine traits and her femininity, and a balance between confidence and fragility, always keeping Anne human and fairly easy to identify with, even if you didn't like her that much. She knew exactly what she want and went for it full-steam ahead, which at times (especially with Mariana) was rather naive and led her to trouble.
(Also, I feel that Anne's standard chat-up line, 'Do you like Byron?', should be used more in real life. I should probably brush up on my poets :D)
Again, in terms of Maxine's acting, she was nothing less than superb, as always, and she has an absolutely remarkable face - incredibly expressive - and her whole body was completely in the character of Anne (she managed to get a very nice masculine swagger going). The script occasionally dropped off in places and the film did jump from one part to another, with large expanses of time passing very quickly, but on the whole it was very smooth and managed to keep consistently good. (And the sex scenes were hot.)
The supporting actors were also very good. Anna Madeley was great as Mariana, and she and Maxine had wonderful chemistry. I never liked the character very much, though. Gemma Jones and Alan David were wonderful as Anne's aunt and uncle and although they were never hugely involved in the plot they were nevertheless constants in the background. Susan, Christine and Tina were very good as well.
The cinematography was also very lovely.
I definitely recommend this film to everyone. From what I already knew about Anne it kept very closely to her life, considering that there was only 90 minutes (although perhaps it would have been better as a miniseries in order to fully show Anne's progression). At the end it clearly showed how Anne was torn between the great passion of her life (Mariana) and the more pragmatic choice (Ann Walker). Interestingly, or perhaps this is just the history geek in me, but you could compare Anne's relationships with Mariana and Ann with Henry VIII's relationships with the great love of his life, Anne Boleyn (my history teacher always says that it would have been a great love story - Henry risked civil war and religious war with Rome, Spain and France just to be with Anne - had he not had her beheaded at the end), and his final wife, Catherine Parr.
I can't wait to make a vid to this film :)
Other reviews
+++ The Telegraph's review
+++ AfterEllen's review
+++ The Guardian's interview with Maxine Peake - not much in terms of the film, but she brought her dad along to the interview with her, how adorable is that? She took him to the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival too <3
I hope you enjoyed the review, and again, if you want a download just drop me a comment and I'll upload it for you ASAP. If you've seen the film I'd love to talk to you about it, because I think my mum's getting rather tired of me going on about it all the time! And if, after watching you want any Maxine Peake film/TV recs (because she's just that good) I am more than happy to give you some and upload them for you :)
Maxine Peake as Anne Lister
Notes:
+++ If you haven't seen the film yet and live in the UK, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer. You can watch Sue Perkins' excellent documentary, Revealing Anne Lister, there too. Both of them will be there until Monday. You can also preorder and buy the DVD (which includes the documentary and also a really interesting, and adorable, interview with Maxine Peake) on Amazon.co.uk.
+++ If you haven't seen the film and live outside the UK, you can drop me a comment and I can upload it for you, as I have obtained a copy from a friend on YouTube.
+++ I've also made some icons and they can be found here (no real spoilers).
+++ The trailer is here.
+++ Anne Lister's diaries were decoded and published by Helena Whitbread. You can buy I Know My Own Heart: The Diaries of Anne Lister, 1791-1840 on Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com. I've read it and it was really interesting, so I do recommend it. Helena Whitbread also wrote an additional volume, No Priest But Love: The Journals of Anne Lister From 1824-1826, which I have not yet read but again can be bought on both Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com.
Before I start the actual review, I just wanted to say that I was really irritated by how the BBC promoted this - or rather, the lack of promotion. In the run-up to the film I didn't see any promos on TV and there was only one trailer that I saw, and that was shown the night before. Had ralst not emailed me to let me know that air date (and if it wasn't for my bordering-on-obsessive Googling and checking the TV) I might have missed it. I would think that that lost the film a few viewers, which is a pity because it really was excellent.
Now, on with the review! Obviously there are spoilers under the cut, so be warned.
Premise
The film spans a large proportion of Anne's life in 90 minutes, and does so fairly successfully. It mostly deals with Anne Lister's on-off relationship with Mariana Belcombe (played by Anna Madeley from Affinity), as well as her romantic entanglements with other eminent Yorkshire women. At the beginning, Anne and Mariana are very much together, but within the first ten minutes Mariana has ditched Anne to marry an older, extremely wealthy man named Charles Lawton. Anne declares that she will wear black from the day of the wedding onwards, and after a year of mourning Mariana's loss, she starts up a flirtation with a charming girl she meets at church, Miss Browne (played by Tina O'Brien), as well as keeping up a casual relationship with an old flame, Isabella 'Tib' Norcliffe (Susan Lynch). Mariana, however, is still Anne's passion and keeps her hanging, leading her on with promises that once Charles dies they can be together. However, Anne eventually realises that Mariana would never be brave enough to leave her husband and, after a row in which Mariana declares that she would 'rather die than their connection be known', realises that Mariana is ashamed of her.
She returns to her home, Shibden Hall, and throws herself into work, allying with the very wealthy Miss Ann Walker (Christine Bottomley) to sink a coal pit on her land. Anne eventually marries Miss Walker.
(Obviously this isn't the entire plot, but it's the key points!)
My thoughts
On the whole, this was excellent and I loved it. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks and it definitely didn't disappoint. I watched it by myself, so I wouldn't freak my mother out with my excitement, although she watched it anyway and she liked it too (but she didn't know Anne Lister had been a real person until I told her, and then she said she didn't realise there were lesbians before about 1960. I couldn't decide whether to be amused or horrified).
As a general rule, anything with Maxine Peake in is bound to be excellent, and she was absolutely fantastic here, basically carrying the entire film (if it wasn't for her great performance, I'm not sure I'd have enjoyed it as much). She was incredibly convincing as Anne and managed to make her likeable most of the time - which, considering the almost predatory way she went after Miss Browne, was quite an accomplishment. She also managed to keep the balance between Anne's masculine traits and her femininity, and a balance between confidence and fragility, always keeping Anne human and fairly easy to identify with, even if you didn't like her that much. She knew exactly what she want and went for it full-steam ahead, which at times (especially with Mariana) was rather naive and led her to trouble.
(Also, I feel that Anne's standard chat-up line, 'Do you like Byron?', should be used more in real life. I should probably brush up on my poets :D)
Again, in terms of Maxine's acting, she was nothing less than superb, as always, and she has an absolutely remarkable face - incredibly expressive - and her whole body was completely in the character of Anne (she managed to get a very nice masculine swagger going). The script occasionally dropped off in places and the film did jump from one part to another, with large expanses of time passing very quickly, but on the whole it was very smooth and managed to keep consistently good. (And the sex scenes were hot.)
The supporting actors were also very good. Anna Madeley was great as Mariana, and she and Maxine had wonderful chemistry. I never liked the character very much, though. Gemma Jones and Alan David were wonderful as Anne's aunt and uncle and although they were never hugely involved in the plot they were nevertheless constants in the background. Susan, Christine and Tina were very good as well.
The cinematography was also very lovely.
I definitely recommend this film to everyone. From what I already knew about Anne it kept very closely to her life, considering that there was only 90 minutes (although perhaps it would have been better as a miniseries in order to fully show Anne's progression). At the end it clearly showed how Anne was torn between the great passion of her life (Mariana) and the more pragmatic choice (Ann Walker). Interestingly, or perhaps this is just the history geek in me, but you could compare Anne's relationships with Mariana and Ann with Henry VIII's relationships with the great love of his life, Anne Boleyn (my history teacher always says that it would have been a great love story - Henry risked civil war and religious war with Rome, Spain and France just to be with Anne - had he not had her beheaded at the end), and his final wife, Catherine Parr.
I can't wait to make a vid to this film :)
Other reviews
+++ The Telegraph's review
+++ AfterEllen's review
+++ The Guardian's interview with Maxine Peake - not much in terms of the film, but she brought her dad along to the interview with her, how adorable is that? She took him to the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival too <3
I hope you enjoyed the review, and again, if you want a download just drop me a comment and I'll upload it for you ASAP. If you've seen the film I'd love to talk to you about it, because I think my mum's getting rather tired of me going on about it all the time! And if, after watching you want any Maxine Peake film/TV recs (because she's just that good) I am more than happy to give you some and upload them for you :)