Eternal Beauty (2019)
I was attracted to the film by the two principal actors, Sally Hawkins (
The Shape of Water) and David Thewlis (
Fargo season 3). Both came through in spades. Another standout was Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley in
Downton Abbey).
It's tricky to produce a film which features characters with severe mental illness. The writers tend to over write, and the actors tend to over act, which sometimes results in a type of a parody that never jells. In this case the performances by the inestimable Hawkins and Thewlis were adept at keeping up the natural feel, which may have disguised some weak writing.
Pictures that are helmed by the same writer and director sometimes run the risk of mediocre continuity. Since the director is directing his own script, the danger is that there is no second party to beware of cohesion or stability problems in the production. Those issues are not overwhelming in this picture, but one might say that those principles kept
Eternal Beauty as a nicely done film rather than being a really good film.
Hawkins plays a woman who is shockingly left at the wedding altar, which results in her eventual slide into schizophrenia. She is supported by the state, but is something of an embarrassment to her family, including 3 sisters. She presently meets Thewlis, another with mental problems, and they are attracted to each other. Thewlis moves into her government apartment, but one of the sisters soon brings their relationship to a close in a deeply underhanded way. The film then chugs along to a rather uneventful ending.
Another treacherous feature of these type films --and I'm reminded of
The Snake Pit, The Three Faces of Eve, David and Lisa, and
Repulsion-- is that the stories are easy to write into, but oftentimes difficult to write out of. There are only a few outcomes available when basing a story on a character with severe mental illness. In this case the denouement was digestible, but one has the impression that the entire film could have been fine tuned. Still, the acting alone was worth the price of admission.
Doc's rating: 6/10