Charlie Rose

REMant  01/12/2010 02:00 PM Report

Has nifty titles and is well crafted, but I had a hard time imagining who its audience is supposed to be. I see it is a BBC production, and it has that psycho-historical quality of one of their TV shows. But surely this is not a film that teenage girls are going to flock to, even if their parents let them, yet that seems to have been the intent. It is probably not intended for child molesters, altho it is a lot like Jane March's pornographic The Lover, in that respect, tho a far cry from Lolita. There is also something of a feminist critique in it, like Austen redux. There is perhaps a significant message, in that men are so often looking to recapture youth, while the young women they find, are, on the other hand, after sophistication, etc, and the two are ultimately incompatible. This was, I take it, the theme of the much more poorly done Private Lives of Pippa Lee. But, not to worry, tho the young lady's dreams are disappointed, in the end she is reprieved and avoids becoming a "fallen" woman. The film also features a commentary on bad parenting, with parents as easily seduced by flattery and money as their daughter. I saw a TV show about Page 3 girls not long ago that was, however, much more effective on these scores. Carey Mulligan's terrific cheekbones and dimples kept reminding me of someone. I see tho that she was in Austen's Northanger Abbey, as well as Christie's The Sittaford Mystery, both of which were aired here recently, and the 2005 film of Pride & Prejudice. It is interesting that the British keep churning out actors and actresses, while we keep churning out celebrities.