Review of Albert Nobbs (2011) by Joel M — 21 Apr 2012

Nobbs, nobbs! Who's there? Albert! Albert who?, Albert meaning to tell you my thoughts on the movie "Albert Nobbs", so here they are. "Albert Nobbs" stars Glenn Close as the title character. Albert is an Irish butler at a hotel in 19th Century England who disguises herself as a man. To quote the great Austin Powers "That ain't no man, it's a woman baby", or was it the other way around. Nevertheless, Albert is a simpleton who dreams of owning his or her very own tobacco shop. Albert is all smitten for Helen, the pretty young Hotel maid who is involved in a romance with a young conniving fellow named Joe who also works at the hotel. When Albert befriends a painter named Hubert Page, who is also in the same "woman disguised as man" situation that Albert is in, Albert gets motivated to make his nobbilistic moves on pretty Helen. Director Rodrigo Garcia does make us feel empathy for Albert, but somehow I felt the movie was missing appeal and magnetism, maybe he should have crossdressed the movie with more alluring scenes. Close and a few other scribers actually wrote the film's screenplay which was too close to call as a worthy effort. What was definitely not a close call was Close's astounding performance as Albert, which garnered him, I mean her, a Best Actor, I mean Actress Oscar nomination. Just Kidding, Dame Close. Janet McTeer's strong performance as Hubert Page was also in the tier of a gender-bender Oscar-nominated effort, as she herself received a Best Supporting Actress nom. I guess these two performances were manly enough for Academy Award recognition in the female categories. The rest of the cast was not as stellar, maybe except for Brendan Gleeson. Mia Wasikowska had her moments as Helen, but was too stale for my taste. Aaron Johnson tried to do too much with his overacted performance as Joe. And Pauline Collins' work as the egotistical Hotel owner Mrs. Baker was more of a caricature effort. I must say that the great Brendan Gleeson was good portraying the hotel doctor, but when is Gleeson not good. "Albert Nobbs" is not the feel-good movie of the year, it does have plenty of melancholy moments no matter how many times you try to dress it up with upbeat optimism. But in the end, it was the butler that did it for me to give "Albert Nobbs" a marginal recommendation.

*** Average.