Gentleman's agreement

POSTMEDIA Enlarge Image

Glenn Close and Janet McTeer

At a glance, the atmosphere of Morrison's Hotel in Dublin is fussy, proper Victorian.

Oh, but the underlying sexual landscape is neither as conventional or respectable as its proper proprietress Mrs. Baker (Pauline Collins) would imagine. The guests include an urbane viscount (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who checks into the hotel with a woman but spends the night with a man.

Enlarge Image

Glenn Close (POSTMEDIA)

Enlarge Image

Janet McTeer (CP)

Enlarge Image

Mia Wasikowska and Glenn Close (POSTMEDIA)

Look closely at one of the waiters and discover a gay tippler.

Look even more closely at the other waiter, a discreetly efficient gent seemingly born to service. A patron describes him as a "kind little man." But he isn't as male as he pretends.

Albert Nobbs (Glenn Close) is, in fact, an intensely closeted woman. At an early age, she decided it was safer to live as a man and has been successfully carrying off the masquerade for decades.

Albert's world is rocked when Mrs. Baker insists he share his bed with a raw-boned house painter named Hubert for a night. Albert accidentally reveals his true gender and plaintively begs Hubert not to reveal his secret. Hubert is not so much shocked at Albert's secret as he is by Albert's unmitigated horror at being discovered. The fact that Hubert is played by Janet McTeer should tell you Hubert is harbouring a secret of his own. When he reveals his secret (Blurb me thus: "Janet McTeer is magnificent!"), Albert is wrenched into a world of possibilities he never knew existed.

The word "lesbian" is never uttered, but it transpires that Hubert's disguise simply facilitates Hubert's uncommon common-law marriage to Cathleen (Bronagh Gallagher).

Albert, entranced by the possibility of loneliness alleviated, is left to ponder a late-in-life courtship of the saucy maid Helen (Mia Wasikowska), with the notion of opening a tobacconist shop together. Unfortunately, Albert has none of the social tools for the task and anyway, Helen is being pursued by the new employee, Joe (Aaron Johnson), a rough customer who despises his violent drunkard father and yet seems destined to follow in da's footsteps.

It speaks well of the film's even-handed approach to its characters that even the film's designated villain is as trapped in his social role as Albert is.

Director Rodrigo Cortez (Mother and Child) and Close (who co-scripted with Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville) work a kind of magic with the character of Albert. Close says she modelled her performance on Charlie Chaplin, not mining for comedy but for a delicious pathos.

Ultimately, we are so enraptured by Albert that when he and Hubert dare to venture into public in women's frocks, the initial tension is positively electric with transgression until you remind yourself: Hey, these are women dressed as women. It's a marvellous, disorienting scene.

Some might accuse the filmmakers of trawling for Oscars. (Close and McTeer are both nominated.) But the film offers a pertinent reminder of the misery and loneliness accompanying lives lived in secret, in a time the Rick Santorums and Rick Perrys of the world would doubtless consider "the good old days."

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Other voices

Selected excerpts from reviews of Albert Nobbs.

(A) strange, sad, mesmerizing little movie.

-- Connie Ogle, Miami Herald

Albert Nobbs is a film of great texture and tenderness, and the actors are a joy to behold.

-- Tom Long, Detroit News

It's a career-crowning role for Glenn Close. Too bad the film is such a drag.

-- Peter Debruge, Variety

As an experiment in Academy Award psychology, Albert Nobbs is fascinating. As drama? It is, forgive us, a drag.

-- John Anderson,

Wall Street Journal

This is a costume drama where the costume is the drama.

-- Colin Covert,

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Uh, he's clearly a woman.

-- Matt Pais, Redeye

Albert Nobbs is clearly Close's show -- for better and for worse.

-- Christy Lemire, Associated Press

Though this period drama is meant to be thought-provoking and prompt intriguing queries about gender, it leaves too many questions unanswered.

-- Claudia Puig, USA Today

The result of (Close's) passion project? Getting to look like Bruce Jenner in a bowler and high starched collar.

-- Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

-- Compiled by Shane Minkin

Movie review

Albert Nobbs

Starring Glenn Close and Mia Wasikowska

Globe

14A

113 minutes

3 1/2 out of five stars

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 3, 2012 D1