There are three ways to screw up a literary adaptation: use the original
text as a jumping-off point for self-indulgent weirdness, as in Jane
Campion's Portrait of a Lady; exploit the novel's plot for its
frothier elements, as in Doug McGrath's Emma; or dryly film the book
with little regard for point of view or relevance, as in 80 percent of
Merchant-Ivory productions. A great literary adaptation--such as Little
Women, Persuasion, or the other 20 percent of Merchant-Ivory
productions--risks falling into all three traps, but it ultimately plots a
course through a great book while filtering the book's spirit through a
unique sensibility.
By these standards, the new version of Henry James' The Wings of the
Dove--directed by Iain Softley, from a script by Hossein Amini--is a great
literary adaptation. The story centers around Kate (Helena Bonham Carter),
a poor but well-connected young woman who is living with a wealthy aunt and
waiting to be matched with a prominent bachelor. Unfortunately, she's in
love with Merton (Linus Roache), an underpaid journalist of whom her aunt
doesn't approve. An opportunity to resolve both her problems arrives in the
form of Millie (Alison Elliott), a dying American heiress who is taken with
Merton. Kate schemes to bring her lover and her new friend together in
Venice, where Merton can seduce the young woman before her death and work
his way into her will.
The filmmakers are quite taken with the fun of this threesome frolicking
in Venice, and much of the movie consists of enjoyable outings to
restaurants, festivals, and museums. This is a different direction than the
book takes, and it's not the only change. The time of the novel has been
pushed up eight years, from 1902 to 1910. By only slightly updating a
typically Jamesian tale of intermingling cultures and classes, Softley and
Amini find a painfully tragic romance--one that speaks volumes about
societal changes in Europe just prior to World War I.
The date change has more implications than allowing horse-drawn
carriages to share the streets with motorcars, and topcoats to alternate
with sweaters. This particular period of British history--just removed from
the Victorian era, with its strict codes of social behavior--was full of
the timid decadence that would hit America a decade later. Placing Kate at
this place and time has the effect of framing her actions more harshly: As
a brazen young woman who thinks nothing of browsing stacks of penny
dreadfuls at the book shop, and who isn't bound by tradition to heed her
aunt's wishes, the only reason left for her cruel plan is sheer greed.
Floating triangle
Alison Elliott, Linus Roache, and Helena Bonham
Carter, doing Venice in The Wings of the Dove
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The Wings of the Dove has some of the same swooningly romantic
spirit of last year's The English Patient. In a stingy frame of
mind, the viewer may find it sentimental claptrap; approach it openly,
however, and you'll be salting your popcorn with tears. The key to the
film's success is fine acting. Roache makes a suitably witty and skeptical
Merton, and Carter is a revelation as the callous, self-serving Kate. The
heart of the film, though, belongs to Elliott, who has the thankless task
of playing a saint. Her Millie is part rapacious enthusiast, part giggly
schoolgirl. Her immediate attraction to the cliquish, earthy Kate and
Merton makes perfect sense, and it gives the film its ultimate
resonance.
The movie culminates in a nicely underplayed scene in a cold London
flat, where Kate and Merton step out of the novel's plot for a moment of
desperate, explicit passion. Carter's bold final nude scene--so beautiful,
so bare--conveys every ounce of her character's isolation, as well as the
raw sexuality at the core of the story. It's this kind of daring
moment--beyond the scope of the source material, yet squarely in
context--that sets The Wings of the Dove apart from all the dusty,
bookish films on the shelf.
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