Her wounded, emotionally conflicted performance is not exactly layered, but it never lapses into melodramatic victimhood either. Naturally, the coincidental fact that he is married to Thompson off screen had no bearing on him winning this lead role purely on his own merits.įanning is more impressive as Gray, mimicking an upper-class English accent with aplomb, though the real Effie reportedly spoke with a Scottish brogue. Wise seems like a baffling choice of leading man to play an innocent, sexually confused Mummy’s Boy trapped in late adolescence. Actors often play younger or older, of course, but an obviously middle-aged Ruskin inevitably adds extra layers of unintentional Freudian weirdness to the character’s already dubious relations with both his teen bride and his domineering parents. There are many more wrong notes here, notably the miscasting of Wise, almost two decades older than Ruskin, who was 29 when he married the 19-year-old Gray. Gray’s subsequent long and happy marriage to Millais is only opaquely signposted too, another odd omission. Strangely, however, she does not even address Ruskin’s bodily revulsion issues until the film’s final act, withholding a key piece of the jigsaw for no clear reason. Since this is pure speculation, Thompson wisely keeps the incident off screen. Biographers have pored over his meaning ever since, with some suggesting the unworldly man of letters was repulsed by his young bride’s pubic hair or menstrual blood. In real life, during the scandalous court case that followed, Ruskin notoriously blamed “circumstances in her person” for his failure to rise to the occasion with Gray. Gray’s marriage eventually breaks down when she seizes the initiative, filing for annulment on the grounds of Ruskin’s impotency. During a therapeutic stay in Scotland, she starts to form a flirtatious love triangle with rising pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais ( Tom Sturridge). Ignored by her increasingly priggish husband, Effie becomes paranoid and sick. She moves into his family home on the leafy fringes of South London, where Ruskin’s overbearing mother Margaret ( Julie Walters) greets the interloper with all the icy territorial suspicion of Mrs Danvers in Hitchcock’s Rebecca.
CAST OF EFFIE GRAY FREE
Read the book before seeing any movies (or plays)!įollow Georgian Gems, Regency Reads & Victorian Voices on Tags 18th century 19th century 19th century england agnes witts amberley publishing betley hall biography book giveaway books boswell's london journal british diaries Canada cheshire chester chronical civil war complete diary of a cotswold parson dakota fanning diaries diaries of sarah hurst diary dorset downton abbey effie gray effie in venice ellen tollet emily dickinson emma thompson england english history books france francis witts frederick pottle free book georgian england greg wise history horsham illustrated diaries james boswell jane austen jane welsh carlyle john everett millais john ruskin journals letters life in the english country house literature long 18th century mark girouard maryland maud berkeley mavis e.Victorian London’s leading art critic, John Ruskin ( Greg Wise) marries his teenage Scottish wife Euphemia “Effie” Gray (Fanning) in 1848. There was also a 2009 series, Desperate Romantics. My, the films are busy: IMDB has a (rumored) Keira Knightley film called Untouched in pre-production for 2013. Greg Wise is cast as John Ruskin Tom Sturridge as John Millais. Wikipedia notes that Emma Thompson is producing a film (with Dakota Fanning) called Effie.
The dissolution of the Ruskin marriage is, of course, the background of the 1995 play The Countess. Wonderful to see. Thanks to the internet, you can even find some of the family photographs. The endpapers reproduce an original letter, with its crossed writing. In this book, Lutyens presents the letters with little editorial interruption.
All these items bring Effie Gray back to life. Millais painted several portraits of Effie, all of which are well worth tracking down. Strangely, Lutyens seems closer to Effie in the earlier books handling Ruskin and his parents with lighter gloves in the last of the trio.Įffie is a forgotten woman of the past, overshadowed by her two husbands - John Ruskin (from whom she obtained an annulment) and John Everett Millais. These letters made me fall in love with Effie Gray, and I was quickly looking for the two additional books Lutyens edited on the subject: Millais and the Ruskins (1967), which advances the story and The Ruskins and the Grays (1972), which tells the backstory.
This was one of the first books I “sought out” having found it online - I drove to get it at a shop periodically visited in New Hampshire.
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