Once in while, a film reminds us of the possibilities of cinema - and why we love the medium. Albert Nobbs, this year's Virginia Film Festival Centerpiece Screening, is such a film, bringing together a well-written story with a stellar cast and top-notch acting. The screening, which was followed by a discussion with director Rodrigo Garcia and cast members Mia Wasikowska and Janet McTeer, drew a sold-out crowd to the Paramount Theater.
Veteran actress Glenn Close first played the titular character Nobbs in an off-Broadway production in 1982. Nearly 30 years later, she finally succeeded in bringing George Moore's 19th-century novella onto the silver screen.
Close portrays a woman in 19th century Dublin who poses as a man. As an illegitimate child abandoned at birth, such deception is necessary for Close's character to attain financial stability.
Becoming the male "Albert Nobbs" enables her to find steady work as a butler in a posh hotel. Because of her traumatic past, Nobbs has spent her entire life invisible. Both her gender reversal and her working class status render her mere scenery to the hotel denizens she serves. Long camera angles and sweeping shots only serve to emphasize this characteristic. Yet Garcia also threads in close-ups that demand the viewer to look past the facade of invisibility.
Nobbs seems content to accept her lot in life until she meets Hubert Page (Janet McTeer), also a woman posing as a man - who still succeeded in starting a business and finding a wife. The legitimacy of this stranger's life provides Nobbs with similar dreams of home and hearth. Nobbs then begins to develop a relationship with Helen (Mia Wasikowska), a maid who works in the hotel but is already enamoured with an oft-shirtless boiler boy (Aaron Johnson). Nestled within these twisted relationships is the critical question of identity: Who is Albert Nobbs? And who does s/he want to be? As an orphan who has spent her entire life in hiding, Nobbs has never had a sense of origin. This, Garcia said, contributes to the slow erosion of Nobbs' identity: When asked by Page for her real name, Nobbs hesitates, before answering, "Albert."
The movie appears a bit miserable at times, and all the fatherless babies and typhoid fevers don't help. Yet Nobbs is surrounded by a rich array of characters who do well to deliver the simmering humor of the gender-bender film. In these moments of comedy, as when Page and Nobbs step out in a dress looking more like drag queens than high-society women, the film finds its real heroes. Yes, the movie is a dark reflection of what one must do to "fit in" to society, but it is also a testament of the complexity of social interaction and the power of Close's character.
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