«"I'm hard! And I can't be broken!"»

16-year old Laurel (Hayley Mills) likes to set fires, scream, tell lies, and generally boss around her doddering grandmother and tolerant butler (John Mills). When Miss Madrigal (Deborah Kerr) is hired as the new governess, Laurel begins her usual spying and tormenting in an effort to drive her away, but ends up discovering a terrible secret.

This movie marked Hayley Mills' effort to break away from little girl roles and expand her emotional range. Unfortunately, she isn't quite up to the material and instead does a lot of energetic shouting with no real pain or conviction behind it. Her lack of acting maturity is especially noticeable because the rest of the cast is so outstanding: Edith Evans is impressive as Laurel's stubborn grandmother and Deborah Kerr is flawless as the mysterious and rigid governess. John Mills gives a wonderful performance as the wise and understanding servant who balances all the female hysterics.

While the soundtrack of soulful violins is overly dramatic, the scenery near the white cliffs of Dover is stark and lovely. Not up to producer Ross Hunter's usual sentimental soap-opera standards, but still entertaining.

[Friday, October 10, 2008]

«Poignant Drama With Intrigue And Humor»

Enid Bagnold's play, directed for the big screen by Ronald Neame in 1964, is a touching story about a mystery woman, Madrigal (Deborah Kerr) who answers an ad for a companion for a teenage girl. But this is no prim and proper young English lady - Laurel (Hayley Mills) is a troubled youth who resides with her wealthy grandmother (wonderfully portrayed by Dame Edith Evans, who plays a crusty aristocratic Briton like no one can), and who spins lies, sets fires and steals without a thought to consequences. Obsessed with murder and criminal cases, she is accustomed to having her own way, and sets out to expose her new governess as a madwoman or something worse. Despite the child's negative attitude, Kerr stays on, trying to reach out to Laurel, who in reality, feels so unloved and unworthy that her anger could get her into deep trouble later on. Miss Madrigal attempts to bring Laurel's mother, Olivia (Elizabeth Sellars) back into the picture, but this only adds to the tension within the household. Maitland (Sir John Mills), the butler, seems to have an uncanny understanding of all the goings on and a wry sense of humor that most likely keeps him from blowing a gasket.

Laurel begins to unravel Madrigal's secret, which comes full circle when a distinguished judge and family friend comes for a visit. The realization of her conviction for murder (it is never really confirmed whether she was guilty of the crime or not), serves as a reason as to why she has been so determined to save Laurel - she fears that the girl will end up on the same path she did. Madrigal opens the eyes of all around her - "You should be frightened - you see before you the woman Laurel may yet become! The child who lied, cheated and hated, because she could not believe the simple fact that she was loved! You wanted the truth - and the truth may still save Laurel!" I cannot stress enough that the cast is uniformly excellent, bringing the film's message to the viewer's attention without bashing them on the head with it. Hayley and her late father act marvelously together, and Kerr embodies her role with such mystery, knowledge and concern that you never feel any malice for her, even after her past is revealed.

An expressive musical score, lovely cinematography, both on location in England and at London's Pinewood Studios, as well as the intrigue surrounding Kerr's character make for a fantastically rich viewing experience.

[Wednesday, April 19, 2006]

«Good Melodrama, But Something is Missing ...»

Hayley Mills does a good job of milking all the emotion there is to be milked from the furious, histrionic teenager she plays in the *Chalk Garden*, and I always enjoy Deborah Kerr in her repressed governess-type roles. But a lot of their interaction just rings hollow, somehow--maybe because Mills is so insufferably bratty that it's hard to believe Kerr isn't moved to, at the very least, occasional bouts of unconstrained rage. Indeed, Kerr is so prim and controlled that one tends to question the movie's basic premise--i.e., that Kerr was just like Mills at that age. The upshot is that the script's dramatic potential never fully unfolds. My instinct is to blame this on the direction of Ronald Neame, whose work has always struck me as competent but uninspired. This is a gritty story that should have been told grittily, but, except from Mills, there's hardly a speck of grit anywhere.

All that said, this movie remains a worthwhile conversation piece, one that I think is genuinely useful to an understanding of early 1960s' female pathos. Mills' character seems hopelessly torn between the only two models of girlhood available--the "nice," well-mannered girl who never speaks out of turn, and the "bad" girl careening towards a terrible end. Mills clearly doesn't belong where the "bad" girls go--i.e., jail, or someplace even worse--but just being a "nice" girl will never be enough. The solution the movie offers to Mills's problem--maternal love and understanding--is too easy, to be sure, for in reality there is probably no solution at all. But the script's insistence upon finding a happy ending, and redemption for both Mills and Kerr, is revolutionary nonetheless; here, finally, is a movie about rebelious women who don't die at the end.

Four stars, mostly for social commentary and discussion value.

[Monday, May 30, 2005]

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