Tom & Viv (1994)

**SPOILER(S) ALERT!** I'm surprised that none of the comments seem to mention (unless I missed it) Eliot's awful behavior portrayed in the film. Not only does Viv apparently directly inspire some of the most famous lines (so much for the transcendent method) and indeed contribute through her own hard work and editorial efforts to his most successful poetry, when she is finally put away using an obviously archaic test for sanity practically no one could pass (a mathematical conundrum) that has nothing to do with modern notions of professional psychology, but after she is put away she is indeed truly "put away" as far as Eliot is concerned. He never came to visit her in the sanitarium - not once, nor did she hear from him. At least that's how the movie portrays him. What I wonder is how accurate it all is. Eliot here is portrayed not just as a suffering husband, but one who suffers through his affection for the social position his wife gives him, and then when she clearly becomes a social handicap she is put away and forgotten. A clear injustice given the final more professional, scientific modern diagnosis that her problems all along were hormonal - not psychological.

Was she mentally ill or was she suffering from hormonal imbalances not unlike post-menstrual syndrome? The fact that she was bleeding 3 times a month and had erratic behavior certainly alludes to something other that mental illness. When the American doctor came to the institution to see her, he said that her condition could have been controlled with medication. I realize that the times did not allow her illness to be analyzed or researched -- women were really of no interest other than being an extension of their husbands. However, I think that knowing what we do now -- and because as she got older her outbreaks lessened -- it seems that this was not a case of a "crazy" person's rantings. She was merely a woman who was indeed outspoken and had a mind of her own and also suffered from depression brought on by PMS.

A reasonably well done and fairly well acted biopic of T. S. Eliot, the film is at times delightful to watch, but it is always lacking. The information it presents about Eliot feels insufficient, as his background feels uncomfortably unknown, and there is also no real indication of the setting and time of the film. It is a bit long too, not always be interesting, and really a bit ordinary at times. But it is still well acted and it does have something to say about the position of women in society. Harris and Richardson were both nominated for Oscars for their performance, but Dafoe is the one who really shines here.

The film starts with a passionate embrace between Tom and Viv on the innocent setting of an Oxford punt. For the next quarter of an hour you may think that this will be an ordinary, merchant ivory type film about an upper-crust gal and her american beau writing away their cares in the dreaming spires of Oxford. However the idyllic setting and the gentle breezes soon fade into nothingness and before long you are forced to comprehend the tortured soul of one suffering from mental hysteria and the immediate effects of that on those who are subjected to the outbursts. Miranda Richardson's performance as the highly strung wife of one of our most famous poets, takes this film to another level. Although the story is essentially a simple love story why it sits apart from the rest is purely down to the fact that Tom suffers Viv's neuroses silently like the true English gentleman he has become. Devotees of T.S. Elliot may find that the film is superficial in its reference to his work and that the focus is centered on Viv. Yet at the end of the film I was left with a heightened awareness of what and who might have propelled him to write the way he did. This bitter-sweet film tugs at the heart strings just so.