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3.1.24 Favorite things and highlights.
[jp] My favorite moment in Melanie Lynskey's performance comes when Pauline is having her hair combed by Hilda Hulme at Port Levy. Many important things are communicated in very few gestures and looks. I also very much liked the fights between Pauline and Honora--the tone and dynamics were very true to life. And Pauline's joy and her affection towards Juliet was very convincing in the earlier scenes. Finally, Ms Lynskey's darkness, her raw edges and impatience in the final scenes were also excellent. It almost appeared as if she had gone for weeks without sleep, like the real Pauline.
My favorite moment in Kate Winslet's performance is the scene in Pauline's bedroom the morning of the murder. "Oooh, I feel all sweaty. Do you feel sweaty? I feel all sweaty." Again, lots of important things are said around those words. Ms Winslet gave a very believable portrait of Juliet trying to convince herself, unsuccessfully, that what she was about to do was right. And I also liked the way Juliet was shown to change, very convincingly, over the two-year period of the film, her need growing progressively as her confidence crumbled. I believed Juliet's half of the relationship, too, thanks to Ms Winslet's performance.
And Sarah Peirse did a superb job of painting a sympathetic, well-rounded portrait of Honora. I particularly liked her weary dignity and her fluster when things became too complex to handle and, as I have mentioned elsewhere, the way Ms Peirse used her voice. Ms Peirse's performance in the entire last scene is superb. I imagine it was hard to film, especially in the tearooms.
My favorite technical aspect is the instant in which the sound of Juliet grabbing the branch breaks through Puccini's "Humming Chorus" in the final scene, and then is lost to the music.
My favourite camera shot is the dialog-free, meandering camera shot over Honora's face in the upstairs hall as she gives Pauline a tongue-lashing. Dasent's music and Lynskey's voiceover ("how I loathed Mother...") are absolutely chilling the way they add to Bollinger's camera work. The way the viewer is led to focus on little pieces of Honora, then move on, not according to the pace of her words, not even listening to her words, in fact, but just as a study of something--this makes a very powerful impact. This may have been the moment when Honora ceased being a whole human being to Pauline, becoming just fragments and objects to be despised, and it is an eerie and extremely unsettling scene.
[aa] In the scene where Dr Hulme is meeting with the Riepers in their home, there is a wonderfully theatrical pause, along with a dramatic tracking-in of the camera, or lightening, or a burst of thunder, directly before each of his carefully-chosen key words: "an...unhealthy...attachment" "behaving in a rather...disturbed...manner" "wayward..." "unwholesome..."
[dp] In the scene where the girls were on the phone, crying, and Juliet's mother takes the phone and hangs it up, I was almost physically affected by their emotion--it was as if, for each of them, the other had died, and they were wailing and keening like mourners. Absolutely amazing performances, especially considering that Melanie Lynskey had never acted professionally before. [note: I received many comments about this scene and anecdotes of similar events in people's lives. It was a scene which really struck a chord in many viewers. jp]
