I Capture the Castle Review
by Jonathan F. Richards (moviecritic AT prodigy DOT net)September 9th, 2003
IN THE DARK/Jonathan Richards
I CAPTURE THE CASTLE
Directed by Tim Fywell
Rated R, 113 minutes
If things had worked out differently sixty years ago, "I Capture the Castle" might already be a movie classic, with Elizabeth Taylor and Janet Leigh as the castle-poor Mortmain sisters, Donald Crisp as their eccentric writer's-blocked father, and Van Johnson and Montgomery Clift as the rich American brothers who turn up to set visions of gold-plated sugarplums dancing in their heads. But British playwright Dodie Smith, then living in Hollywood, spurned MGM's demand that she hurry up and finish her first novel so they could make a movie of it, and the story wound up taking more than half a century to arrive on the silver screen.
The wait has been worth it. Director Tim Fywell, a British television veteran making his feature film debut, spins a satisfyingly low-key rendition of Smith's tale of romantic complications and adolescent yearnings, with the help of a sure-handed screenplay by Heidi Thomas, elegant photography by Richard Greatrex ("Shakespeare in Love"), and a mostly-British cast of excellent actors whose names and faces will ring few bells on this side of the Atlantic.
James Mortmain (London stage actor Bill Nighy) is a novelist whose initial success d'estime has been followed by a fallow period. When he spots a vacant castle for rent on a Sunday drive in the English countryside with his family, he snaps it up. "I will write masterpieces here!" he crows from the parapets.
But ten years later, when the story's main action begins, he has not written a word in earnest. His daughters Rose (Rose Byrne), the beauty, and Cassandra (Romola Garai), the smart one, are entering young womanhood in distressing penury. His wife is dead, and he is now married to Topaz (Tara Fitzgerald), a free-spirited nymph whose calling in life is to serve as a muse to the arts. The castle is rat-infested, there is precious little food on the table, the back rent runs to years rather than months, and the forbearing old landlord, Lord Cotton, has recently passed away.
When his heirs arrive on the premises, they turn out to be handsome, strapping, and seriously wealthy young Americans, Neil (Marc Blucas of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") and Simon (Henry Thomas, the "E.T." boy). Rose, who has the most trouble coming to terms with the family's poverty, has impetuously threatened to sell herself on the streets, and has declared to her younger sister that she would marry a chimpanzee if he had money. When she gets a look at the Cotton brothers, she realizes that salvation in a more appetizing package may be at hand.
The trouble is, the girls have no experience in social interaction. "I wish we could afford to go to the cinema so we'd know how to act," Cassandra laments after Rose makes a fool of herself trying to be flirtatious; and later she observes that "the thing we know least about at all is being women." Topaz does her best to help, but (as Rose temperamentally reminds her), she is not their mother. Topaz is having enough trouble dealing with her sense of failure as Mortmain's muse, and tries to hone her powers by standing naked outside at night in a rainstorm. When Rose sets her sights on Simon, the sensitive brother, she confides desperately to Cassandra that "Simon has to propose to me now - before he meets somebody else or gets to know me better."
There are two pretty sisters, and two rich brothers, and the math ought to work out simply enough, but this is not a simple story. Other characters are there to spice the broth, including Steven (Henry Cavill), the Adonis-featured young handyman who harbors a respectful passion for Cassandra, and the brothers' fearsome American mother (Sinead Cusack), a plain-spoken virago who threatens to displace Topaz as Mortmain's muse.
The story is narrated by Cassandra, who is just turning eighteen and has inherited her father's talent as a writer. Her observations come in the form of journal entries, the voice in which the novel is composed, but they never overwhelm the movie. It is a coming-of-age story, the blossoming of an intelligent adolescent's discovery of the adult world of love, with its attendant agonies and ecstasies. Some of the discoveries are storybook-simple ("A kiss can do amazing things") and some are more complicated. But "I Capture the Castle" acknowledges the realities of love by not tying everything up in pink ribbons at the end.
Dodie Smith, who died a dozen years ago at the age of 94, did very nicely by Hollywood courtesy of the Disney version of her other novel, The One Hundred and One Dalmatians. This latest adaptation of her work could well become a quiet classic itself, except that its natural core audience, teenage girls, will be shut out by the outrageous R rating visited upon it by the MPAA for Tara Fitzgerald's briefly-glimpsed breasts in a non-sexual situation. Instead of being entranced and enriched by "I Capture the Castle", and then going out to buy the book, they will have to make do with the cheap smut and violence shown on neighboring cineplex screens under the protective embrace of PG-13. Fortunately, this lovely film will appeal to audiences of all ages, so they should have someone to go with.
More on 'I Capture the Castle'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
