Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Despite strong performances by Minnie Driver and Tom Wilkinson, this film fails to ignite the imagination of the viewer.By the way, what has become of Ms. Driver? She had such a potential in the film industry.This to me was almost like an 1850s version of Yentl without the musical fanfare. With the death of her father, Driver takes a position as a governess to a Christian family, hiding her Jewish identity.While I realize that this is a period peace, it was awfully dull even for 1850 England and Scotland.The lady of the house is most irritating with that sing-song voice of hers. I expected her to refer to Driver as dear at any moment. What kind of name is Mary Blackchurch? I know that Driver is trying to pass herself off as a Christian, but does this name signify all the way?In the interim, Mary finds love with the young charge's father (Wilkinson) and his emotionally unbalanced son.In the end, the only thing that we see accomplished is that Mary has found a profession to provide for her family-photography. Did we really have to be subjected to what was happening throughout the film?The early scenes of Judaism practiced in 19th century England and the cholera epidemic at the end could have been played up more. There is a definite underlying feeling of anti-Semitism by the Wilkinson family but that's never allowed to come out.

This was slagged off in the Radio Times but I'd checked the viewer comments here and decided to watch it . My one main problem with this is Minnie Driver . She can't do restrained and repressed . It's not her . She's not Helena Bonham-Carter or Kristin Scott Thomas . The fragile English rose , she's not . Stillness doesn't suit her . When she lets rip at Tom Wilkinson she comes alive . Let's see some more of that kind of temperament in her performances . Apart from that it is a very well put together film although the wonderfulness of this Jewish woman alone in the Gentile world of the nineteenth century gets laid on with a trowel , somewhat . Nevertheless an interesting and unusual film .

The story is not up to great things, oft told one way or another and smacking of Jane Austen romantic drama aspirations: a beautiful jewess of sephardi descent in 1830s London decides to take the job of governess to a little girl in a great big mansion supposedly on the Island of Skye, Inner Hebrides, Scotland (though I did glimpse a bit of Glencoe, Scottish mainland, and indeed what was definitely the beautiful Cuillins on Skye) where she falls in love with the master of the household, father of the little girl, and then the son falls in love with her. Well, that alone might have you wandering over to the next projection sala or just twiddling with the remote control, if it were not for certain other factors which may well be called redeeming, so good they are.Minnie Driver certainly looks the beautiful jewess, but her interpretation goes a bit awry at times, or even careers off the rails; her performance has ups and downs of feelings and passions which do not really make much sense. Better directing might well have produced better results from Ms. Driver, as well as the fact that the focussing of the story is very much a feministic appreciation, rather slanted perhaps, forgiveably so I am not so sure, rather as if Ms. Goldbacher herself was brought up on the aforementioned Jane Austen, as well as Daphné du Maurier, a touch of the Brontës, and she finally spiced it all up with some misgivings from D.H. Lawrence. The result is a confusion of desire and sex being mistaken for romantic love. But don't we all, anyway?The excellent photography and scenification makes up quite a lot for many of these pitfalls; the costumes and the settings of the interior of the house of such lucky landed-gentry is superb, as well as the scenes in London in the opening and closing parts of the film. This visual experience is greatly enhanced by the musical setting. Ed Shearmur has done an excellent job of creating his own `sephardi' music, helped by offerings from the Israeli singer, Ofra Haza. The music contributed greatly to the setting of scenes, ably supplying tone and atmosphere. Such that I feel one could enjoy this film solely for the photography, costumes and sets, and the music, and you could quite happily skip most of the story. It is not that the story is so bad, just that it is not anything special to write home to mother about, although she might well be the first to disagree.The Sephardi songs made me remember an old recording I have of some very beautiful melodies sung by Soledad Bravo on a CBS record maybe 20 years ago and which might be found on a Sony CD. The intepretation of these songs, sung in `ladino' (sometimes called judezmo) which is an archaic form of today's Spanish, is pretty authentic. Ladino is still used today by descendents of people thrown out of Spain during the `Inquisición', and now living in parts of Turkey (specifically I found it being spoken in Izmir), Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro and the Croatia coast. Within Israel of course, this language is pretty frequent.

Minnie Driver is cute and photogenic. While the male characters are charming, she is the main draw. My own observation is that Driver was a bit mature to be playing a naive young virgin forced out into the cold, cruel world, but she is fetching and made for this part.Now that that is out of the way, I found the film unsatisfying. The title character is largely unsympathetic. A spoiled rich girl forced to find gainful employment after the death of her father, Driver embarks on an elaborate deception. She pretends to be a Christian so that she may service - in more ways than one, it turns out - a remote, conservative British family. That this is somewhat fanciful (perhaps there were jobs closer by that paid more than 20 pounds a year?) draws a romance novel aura right from the start.Once ensconced in the busom of her employer's family - passing herself off as being of Italian descent when the other characters all but give her knowing winks - our heroine proceeds to: a) seduce the married patriarch (she is hardly a victim) who is disturbingly reminiscent of her own beloved papa; b) betray him with his emotionally immature son; c) photograph him sleeping nude without his knowledge or consent, which he later makes clear invaded his privacy; d) actively seek to break up his family by having him run away with her; and e) publicly expose (!) him to his family using her misbegotten photographs. Perhaps he had it coming because his qualms arose too late, but he winds up the most sympathetic figure, victim of an avenging poseur with no sense of responsibility for her actions.The governess winds up having the presence of mind upon leaving to steal the new-fangled photography idea (which she has improved despite having no background in it - plucky girl!) and to go into business for herself, becoming (of course) a huge success. Can't have a romance tale without the big success-is-the-best-revenge payoff, I suppose, especially at the what-goes-around-comes-around expense of the fellow who hurt her.The character of the patriarch is nicely, if stiffly, played by Tom Wilkinson. Once he ends the affair, he loses all color and interest - he becomes part of the scenery, as he was before the affair began. The son is played in an annoyingly bratty fashion by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. The other female characters are largely ciphers, except for some cute scenes by little Florence Hoath. The overall effect is that everyone is filtered through the governess' perspective and her changing emotional priorities, in keeping with the romance novel attitude.Driver's characterization is a bit erratic. After maintaining a cool, calculating exterior, the governess incongruously explodes into a fit of sobbing passion some time after being rejected - then just as suddenly resumes her passionless, predatory behavior. More time devoted to her emotional development would have been useful.While by nature your standard bodice-ripper - Driver quite literally rips off her own bodice - I term this a proto-feminist film. The caveats are that the "feminist" impulses arise in a catty and under-handed context and the heroine seems more driven by spite and desire than by intent. She encounters adversity, then adventure and romance, then betrayal and bitter revenge, then brilliant success - yes, I think I've seen that plot before.