Every awards season needs a sumptuous, period drama (preferably based on a true story) to serve as a potential rival to more contemporary and flashier films, and this year, “The Invisible Woman” may just be that pic. Combining literary history, romance and some decent talent all around, this one will tap into voters used to more traditional fare.
However, it will have to make some stronger waves that it has already. Screening at Telluride and TIFF, the Ralph Fiennes directed and starring film didn’t make much of a ripple either way, with most folks calling it fairly standard as far as these kinds of movies go. The pictures tells the true story of famed author Charles Dickens (Fiennes) and his relationship with his mistress (played by Felicity Jones) and it seems to go in all the directions you’d expect. Our man in Colorado stated: “The problem is that we’ve seen so many fictions about Victorians who can’t let the onset of real passion break up their stuffy marriages that even a true-life variation doesn’t have that much to add to the genre, much less that’s thematically worthy of Dickens.”
Hitting NYFF soon, the film will get another chance to woo critics and audiences. “The Invisible Woman” opens on Christmas Day.
