THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 6, 1995 TAG: 9504060569
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
RHETT AND SCARLETT. August Rodin and Camille Claudel. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Now add Tom and Viv to the list of controversial, dysfunctional unions that, in spite of love, just couldn't make it.
``Tom and Viv'' is more, and much less, than a biography of T.S. Eliot, arguably the greatest poet of the 20th century. It is a drama about Eliot's first marriage.
If we are to believe what we are shown, Eliot used his vivacious wife to climb social ladders in England, used her help and support for his writing, and then stood by and saw her committed to an asylum. She died in 1947 after 10 years of commitment. The next year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Miranda Richardson justifiably received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Vivien Haigh-Wood, an extremely complex woman. As written here, it's an awesome assignment for any actress. Richardson, who was Oscar nominated the previous year for ``Damage,'' is asked to suggest not an insane woman but a woman who is erratic, overwrought and ``peculiar.''
Richardson fails to suggest the vivacious, flapper quality of the young Vivvie - the qualities that presumably attracted Tom Eliot to her. She effectively essays, though, the more intense, unpredictable behavior of the later Viv.
They meet at Oxford in 1914. She is an aristocrat from a wealthy British family. He is a young American student, longing to be accepted by the people she calls her own. They marry, only to clash on the wedding night. Complaining of headaches and ``stomach problems,'' she takes medication and promptly destroys their hotel room.
As he becomes famous, she becomes an embarrassment. By 1927, they have moved upward, but his Bloomsbury friends encourage him to dump her. She sees her fortune, left to her by her father, put under the control of her husband and brother. She is a hapless woman in a world ruled by men.
Research, which is not explained as clearly in the film as it might be, now explains that she was the victim of a chemical imbalance brought on by her medication. Michael Hastings' 1984 play, upon which the screenplay is based, revealed that her depressive behavior was brought on by erratic, and often uninterrupted, menstrual periods. After she completed menopause, she became quite a rational woman. Yet she remained in the hospital for the rest of her life - never visited by Eliot.
The film is heavily weighted in her favor, right down to a stuffy and impersonal performance by Willem Dafoe as Eliot. It is a remarkably disciplined and understated display of acting.
More than just a movie about two long-dead literary characters, the film attempts universality by suggesting the love-hate relationship as tragedy. It also painfully shows us the double standards held for women and men in the period. The same behavior from a man would have been tolerated, but there were ample laws by which Viv's husband could commit her.
The film's best performance is contributed by Rosemary Harris as Viv's thoughtful and concerned mother, who reluctantly accepts her son-in-law and then chastises him for not giving her daughter the support she needed. It is a quiet, forceful performance that is the epitome of what a supporting performance should be. Harris is one of our greatest stage actresses and we can only hope we'll see more of her on screen - when she can be lured from her Winston-Salem, N.C., home.
Also of interest is Nickolas Grace's portrayal of Bertrand Russell, a friend of the Eliot's and his tutor, as more frivolous than we usually imagine. Here, he is a refreshingly light being.
The film, however, is not totally successful as either biography or tragic love story. It's somewhere in between and, as such, is dangerously close to being in limbo. It's a painful, downbeat outing that never really catches fire. Even though it is always interesting, and often compelling, it keeps us at a distance. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``Tom and Viv''
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson, Rosemary Harris, Tom
Dutton, Nickolas Grace
Director: Brian Gilbert
Screenplay: Michael Hastings and Adrian Hodges, based on a play
by Hastings
Music: Debbie Wiseman
MPAA rating: R
Mal's rating: Three stars
Location: Opening today at the Naro in Norfolk
by CNB