This week I tackle The Governess, a 1998 faux-Merchant-Ivory picture about a Jewish girl who inexplicably decides that, instead of marrying an old rich guy who is clearly going to die in five years and leave her a wealthy widow, she is going to gain independence by pretending to be a Christian governess and riding off to Scotland, where she immediately falls in love with the old man of the house and becomes that shrieking girlfriend who wakes you up at night because she has loud fights about how she’s not sure if he even loves her anymore and then throws his shit down the stairs and you find underpants on the banister the next morning when you’re just trying to get to work.

Uh, spoilers. For the movie, and for my life.

The draws of this movie are mainly the cinematography, the evil girl-child, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers when he was, like, twelve years old. And then we’re right on to the stuff I don’t like, which is a LOT. It hardly even counts as Questionable Taste, except it’s so pretty that I can’t really lump it in with Prince of Thieves.

I will be doing a lot of talking about the costuming, which did something I never thought was possible, which is Excessive Chemise. (I know, right?)

Girl, your plastic dress is falling OFF.

I have spent weeks trying to decide if this belongs as a Questionable Taste or a We Need to Talk, and I’m throwing it over here only because some of the imagery is so lovely. Don’t be fooled into thinking I enjoy this movie wholesale! I do not! It has puhLENTY wrong with it. Those things include:

- The main character, Rosina. (She’s too useless to follow around for two hours, and I think this movie is like, four hours long, just based on how it felt when I was watching it.)
- The love interest, Tom Wilkinson, whom I generally adore, phones in a performance of a lame asshole, and is also an incredibly hairy man, which I can say with certainty since we see him totally naked. THANKS, MOVIE.
- The entire premise.
- Every moment of the plot.
- The costumes.

Things I like include:

- Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who apparently made this movie when he was twelve, as training for later creepy parts.
- Clementina, the girl who is governessed, and who deserved a whole movie of her own. Bum luck, Clementina!
- The cinematography. Gorgeous. The movie takes place during the invention of photography, and much of the movie is just beautifully frames, lit, and shot. None of the production stills convey any hint of how lovely this movie is. Worst plot ever, but if you watch it on mute it’s amazing.
- Harriet Walter is in it! This is convenient for Awesome British Actor Camp Bingo.
- The costumes, which are sort of so bad they come right back around to funny.
- The HILARIOUS subplot with Minnie Driver and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Most of the movie is gorgeous shots of early photography, and then big screaming matches where this kind of thing happens:

Tom Wilkinson: I do not have your feelings – I do not want the feelings that I have!
Minnie Driver: YOU DO! YOU DO WANT THEM! YOU WANT THESE FEELINGS! *sobbing*

Which, you know. Can’t add much to that.

However, there are redeeming subplots! For certain values of “redeeming.”

When Rosina comes into the house, she meets Clementina, the holy terror. She tames the holy terror by threatening her and giving her dark fairy tales to read (it’s just like when I was little!), and for a little while it’s all very You Are My New Mommy, which of course falls apart as soon as Rosina starts mooning about Clementina’s hirsute papa. Clementina then spends the rest of the movie enacting really creepy plays with her dolls and basically being eight times cooler than this movie deserves. I like to think she grew up and became a murderess. I wish you the best, Clem!

Meanwhile, Jonathan comes home in disgrace from Oxford, and sadly, he and Minnie Driver have about eight times as much chemistry as Minnie Driver has with Tom Wilkinson, so instead of it coming off as creepy, their flirtation comes off as totally awesome, and when she breaks his heart and he marches off naked and screaming into the ocean (no, really – talk about Ye Olde Emoe), you feel sorry for him, which I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do. I guess instead you’re supposed to feel sorry for the old hairy dude who cheats on his wife, attempts to assault his girlfriend, and takes credit for his girlfriend’s discoveries about photography. WHATEVER, MOVIE.

And we need to talk about these costumes.

Frame o’reference: 1840s day dresses tended to look like this:

Or like these.

What Minnie Driver’s day dress looks like:

Good: Well, there is no doubt she’s wearing a chemise.
Bad: Uh, that is a LOT of chemise for a day dress, young lady.

She’s also wearing some sort of oiled cotton crossover dress that shows cleavage basically down to her navel, and it registers on film as ridiculously leathery, so you spend the whole movie muttering, “Yeah, I GET it, it’s leather, she’s DOMINATING the relationship, okay? Damn!”

(Note that the dress above the cut is the same fabric, in a straighter bodice cut, and some random gauntlet sleeves she stole off a court jester or something:

Also note, that skirt has wide box pleats, which seem about a century out of place to me. In the 1840s it was mostly knife pleats like in the yellow dress, and there were lots of small ones because you wanted room in the fabric for the PETTICOAT underneath, okay, Minnie? Now pull up your top, you’re embarrassing me.)

Fun fact: later she takes off all her clothes, and it’s one (1) layer of dress, zero (0) petticoats, leaving her in a set of bloomers (fine, whatever), a corset (great) and a chemise on TOP of the corset (*screeching halt*). So close, Minnie Driver, and yet so far!

Much better is Harriet Walter’s wardrobe:

It’s about ten years behind the times (that’s an 1830s style), and she’s wearing an evening dress in the middle of the afternoon for some reason, but in a remote house you might not have access to fashion papers and a dressmaker, so it gets a pass. Plus, you know, Harriet Walter. (Please note that, for the times, that dress is not particularly fussy. The bodice is downright casual. I get that she’s Not As Interesting As Rosina, but you know, let’s not blame the poor lady’s wardrobe, movie people.)

Some laugh-out-loud costume moments:

1) Rosina, undercover as “Mary Blackchurch,” takes a carriage ride to the remote household where she will convince them she’s a governess…in her leather coat, Da Vinci headband, and Musketeer hat.

You keep it under the radar, Rosie!

2) Rosina has a fraught moment with Henry…who’s dressed like the lovechild of Little Lord Fauntleroy and Sailor Moon in a dude-chemise that they put in this movie just to taunt me.

Citation: Excessive Chemise. Put on a real shirt, dude! You’ll catch cold!

Whatever, he runs into the ocean naked like, four scenes after this, so it hardly matters. Enjoy your consumption, Jonathan.