Dir.
Thaddeus O'Sullivan, 2002, UK/Germany, 96 mins
Cast: Helena Bonham-Carter, Olivia Williams, Paul Bettany, Eleanor Bron, Luke Newberry, Tom Ward, Gillian Hanna
Olivia Williams stars as Madeleine, the terribly nice, stiff upper lipped wife to Paul Bettany's suave Rickie in this adaptation of Rosamond Lehmann's novel The Echoing Grove.
On the death of their father, Madeline invites her decadent and unconventional sister Dinah (Helena Bonham-Carter) to stay with them, thus igniting an illicit love triangle. After longing looks between the two, Rickie blunders into Dinah's bedroom and tells her she must call off her newly announced marriage engagement. Dinah responds with a simple "alright". She then moves into a flat with a painter friend, Bridie (Alison Reid) and it is here that the blossoming relationship is consummated. From then on, Dinah and Rickie meet at every opportunity to indulge their passion.
Meanwhile, Madeleine attempts to live her life as before. Unaware of her husband and sister's affair, she nevertheless notices Rickie's withdrawal from her. The epitome of early 20th century upper-classed Britishness, Madeleine plays the stoical wounded lover who refuses to bemoan, or else accept her fate. Williams delivers a beautifully moving and understated performance with just the merest sideways glance conveying her true feelings. Ultimately though, the audience loses patience with Madeleine - the one character in this film we actually care about - for how can she truly care to the extent she does about this act of betrayal when the two people concerned clearly do not deserve it her tears. When the affair is finally disclosed Madeleine says she knew all along. Her husband replies: "Then why didn't you do something to stop it?" Exposing him to be not only weak but selfish too.
The relationship between the three is a complicated one - Rickie continually flits between the two sisters, torn between desire and duty but succeeding only in hurting everyone concerned.
Dinah conceives and then loses his child. Rickie's health deteriorates and, whilst in hospital, the family contrives to ensure that Dinah is unable to see him. Led by his mother-in-law, Rickie believes Dinah now has a new love in France and, ironically, can't believe that she has betrayed him. Madeleine, meanwhile, visits Dinah and tells her that Rickie is coming home with her and that, for the sake of Rickie's health, she should leave him alone.
The audience is clearly supposed to be on the side of the two illicit lovers. Director Thaddeus O'Sullivan says: "It was the love affair that attracted me to the story. I think that everyone wants to believe in love as a great force and Rickie and Dinah's love story is compelling; their affair has such an unstoppable momentum." When Rickie forces himself on Madeleine we are encouraged to see it as her punishment for having lied to him about Dinah. However, the truth is that Bettany's Rickie is an insipid, pathetic man with no backbone, whilst Bonham-Carter's eccentricity is annoying rather than endearing, her complete disregard for the fact that she is fornicating with her sister's husband obviously just a side-effect of her being a bohemian free spirit. Without giving too much away, the ending implies that it was indeed Dinah who Rickie was meant to be with, but the final resolution between the two sisters is just a little too convenient, civilised and twee.
The pace flags in places, and the inter-cutting between the flashbacks and the present day doesn't always work, but the film itself is beautifully shot, with mise en scene depicting the characters psyches - Madeleine's home shot in cool, clinical colours and Dinah's warmer, cluttered and homely - while the New Year's Eve scene is particularly well-executed.
As period dramas go, The Heart of Me is an admirable observation of the upper-classes in the thirties, with a story that is bursting with conflicts and tensions, and characters that both repel and attract.
A final spin is put on the film's story when screenwriter Linda Coxon says: "Who will they [the audience] feel has been responsible for this chain of events?
"Has Rickie destroyed the sisters or have they, in fact, destroyed him?"
Jean Lynch
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