Review of The Invisible Woman (2013) by Nathan M — 27 Apr 2014

I decided to watch this because I am a Dickens fan and I write myself. I found it to be an engaging, quality period drama with strong performances by both leads. That Dickens had a wonderful, yet complex life is made thoroughly apparent.

However, unless I was snoozing during this part of the dialogue, I did not pick up on why he chose to marry a woman who bore him children, but otherwise merely seemed to bore him. It didn't help, of course, that she was a rotund, plus size woman, and the young woman he got involved with was, naturally, pert and trim so was he just having a standard issue middle age crisis? There was a certain amount of talk on the level of "tell me your secrets" that added to the romantic fire.

Dickens eventually spilled the beans as to his own "secret" with this young woman, confessing that he was deeply affected by his father being sent to debtor's prison; considering Dickens' amazing output of writing (not to mention the length of most of his novels), he was quite the workaholic and perhaps was always haunted by the ghost of poverty.

He was a very driven man, but apparently also good-humored and had a zest for life. There were several memorable scenes in this handsome production, but that of his long-suffering wife finding out he was, for all practical purposes, leaving her, was the most powerful.

Ralph Fiennes was excellent in this production, which seemed to somehow avoid the stuffiness of similar Merchant-Ivory period dramas. Overall, it was well worth watching.