Effie Gray (2014)

John Ruskin a famed social thinker, reformer, art critic and painter has his character thrashed in this film. Ruskin when he was 29 years old married Effie Gray (Dakota Fanning) who was 19 years old. Not that great an age difference but clearly Greg Wise as John Ruskin looks too old and sadly too one note, then again his wife Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay and also plays a supporting role as Lady Eastlake.We are given very little to go on as to why Ruskin would not consummate the marriage, after all Effie is pretty which means either he was turned off by the female body or was homosexual. It probably did not help that Ruskin chose to live with his parents who seemed to have a heavy influence on the adult Ruskin.Ruskin also encourages his wife to have a developing relationship with his art protégé Everett Millais (Tom Sturridge) even if Millais at one point tells Ruskin how this would look to polite society.The film does not tell you that after the annulment, Effie married Millais and Ruskin never married again.This is a handsomely mounted leisurely paced film, there is some location filming in Venice but it is rather dreary, inert and conventional.Wise and Sturridge are not the strongest actors. Fanning though is rather good, Derek Jacobi and James Fox are rather wasted in their cameos.

Ruskin was a dominating and influential public figure. Driven, dogmatic, intensely serious, argumentative and over time self-contradictory. His great two volume "Stones of Venice" were essential for the bookshelves of Victorians wishing to be seen as cultivated and engaged, with a deep interest in both architectural and religious questions. Ruskin,father of the Gothic Revival,wrote the "Stones of Venice" as a very elaborate and extensive - and tenuous - justification for Gothic as the only true Protestant architectural style comparing the historic governance of Venice with that of England. Ruskins obsessive advocacy spawned the hundreds of churches and dozen of town halls built in the Gothic style in Victorian England. It is possible I think to form something of a picture of Ruskin's character from his writings - and even for high Victorian England it does not bode well for any future marriage partner. Ruskin was much photographed so his appearance is well known. His demeanour could be guessed at. Apart from his voice one might form a fairly detailed picture of him. So close was Greg Wise to my picture of Ruskin, particularly his demeanour that it was quite a startling experience. Effie though was a perfectly normal young woman. Her lover, Millais too was a very normal man. She had the misfortune to marry a very gifted but tightly buttoned up - in a number of senses - man.It does however mean that the interest - because of its oddity - was Ruskin - and his parents, immensely proud their odd offspring. Top portrayals of the parents and notably too, Derek Jacobi as Effie's solicitor. Emma Thompson's screenplay has such fidelity to the manners and mores of the period, the difficulties of speaking about matters then of great delicacy. It is an antidote to the unspeakable screenplay for "Victoria". The normality of Effie and Millais - and the relatively colourless portrayals - made these parts of the film drag. However I only caught the last quarter of the film or less so look forward to seeing it on DVD asap A 7.5A footnote is a recent book which questions Ruskin's impotence as the cause of his problem with Effie (the writer suggests it was money) but as it was Ruskin himself who wrote (to his solicitors) as an uncomfortable admission that the "circumstances" of Effie's body were not such as to inspire (his) passion - it is difficult not to believe this as anything other than the real cause. Nobody knows exactly what he meant but seems decisive.

loved the movie, but Emma Thompson would be the best to play Hillary Clinton in a movie called {Hillary}!can someone put this together, or do you need me to write the plot! come on, think about it, at this time it would be a box office hit! If you need any ideas, I can help you out with this, although this movie (Effie Gray), Emma Thompson gave a very high performance. But she wood give justice playing the first lady of the United States of America, Hillary Clinton. her grace and undeniable resemblance of Hillary Clinton would make the box office hits go off the charts. There has to be someone out there that shares my thoughts and imagination of how this would be a good story about our nations first lady and the life of the Clintons.

The movie was delayed a year to hit the screen due to the copyright issue. A biographical picture from Britain set in the late 1840. The movie revolves the story of Euphemia Gray shortly known as Effie Gray and her married life. She was from Scotland and only 19 when she married to the British art critic John Ruskin. But she was kept under certain limits of space by her laws. It makes her a lonely soul in the house, which surface a serious threat to their loveless marriage. Can it be held or not is the movie's final conclusion.Dakota Fanning, like I saw her yesterday in teen movies, but now she's in a grown up movie. Felt kind of hard to accept, and then after a while begin to like her performance. That does not mean it was a powerful act, somehow convincible to the viewers. That is mainly because of the story. Actually it's a simple story, if it was set in the today's world. For those periods, it was a big affair to deal publicly as well as family's prestige.The movie's settings and locations were good. As usual in a period drama the costumes are very good. It's always pleasure to learn the history through movies than the school textbooks. Other than that it was an average or just above. The thing is, it was a too slow and a little long movie, thus its not a commercial film. Many people aren't ready to pay watch it in the theatres, that is understood. So in my opinion, it should have been a television movie instead, with sliced into 3-4 episodes. Anyway, not for everyone, but for those who love slow presentations would have a good time.6/10