If Henry James (he wrote the short novel "The Aspern Papers") strikes you as a psychotic who somehow got lucky and achieved fame, this film deserves your attention. It takes his compulsive idolatry of social station and cancels out much, but not all, the 1%'r porn *all* hat-dramas boil down to. And for this achievement, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers' much-maligned performance is maybe 99% responsible.
Rhys-Meyers' "Morton Vint" is totally misunderstood by the majority of reviews here on IMDB. Rhys-Meyers makes his character--who is unnamed in James' novella--over-the-top repulsive from the opening voice-overs to the final fade-out. If you ask yourself, What is this film about? It's, first, about a trashy, low IQ American in pursuit of Percy Bysshe Shelley's letters ("Aspern" is the fictionalized name). To get his hands on them, he's willing to seduce and break the heart of the highly intelligent, refined, aging caregiver (Joely Richardson) of Shelley's elderly mistress (Vanessa Redgrave). Long-secluded from the world in Venice, Redgrave is as venal as Vint. It's regrettable that the film didn't make this as clear as it could have, although Redgrave's acting is as usual magnificent and does what it can with the script and direction. From a certain perspective, "Tina" (Richardson) is the victim of both Redgrave's unwarranted fame as a "great man's" mistress and Vint's unwarranted power as a dissolute American with too much money.
I never lost interest in this film despite Rhys-Meyer's take on the (*not*) hero role. That Richardson's Tina falls for this self-promoter despite the incredible fortress pedigree and brains give her is a testimony to how excellent a seducer Vint is. Substitute Alec D'Urberville. Substitute Steerforth. Substitute any seducer from Victorian fiction for Vint, and you see what Rhys-Meyers must have been aiming for. He's loud, crude, stupid--but persistent. And his persistence pays off.
Joely Richardson is magnetic in her role. Vanessa Redgrave and the eponymous letters are MacGuffins in what is really a battle of wills between only two people--Richardson and Rhys-Meyers. Richardson represents intelligence, grace, and wisdom; Rhys-Meyers does a great job at venality, brute force, and unremarkable shrewdness. "The Aspern Papers" is a revenge-drama of sorts. A woman as much of a "fortress" (Rhys-Meyers calls both Tina and Redgrave that) in danger of humiliating herself for an opportunist saves herself and achieves true freedom, not the spurious kind a "free-spirit" (Redgrave) who just liked to bed a lot of men achieved so long ago--so long ago that in adulthood and old age, her life has been a never-ending prayer for death.
Richardson's physical appearance changes subtly but consistently from her first appearance to her last. The walls she and Redgrave keep in place to protect her from the world also tumble. The "Aspern" letters ironically snatch true love from the flames--an aging woman's love of self from the desperation she had fallen into, but not before she realizes that a man whose sole lust has always been for an object will necessarily be subhuman.
Rhys-Meyers' "Morton Vint" is totally misunderstood by the majority of reviews here on IMDB. Rhys-Meyers makes his character--who is unnamed in James' novella--over-the-top repulsive from the opening voice-overs to the final fade-out. If you ask yourself, What is this film about? It's, first, about a trashy, low IQ American in pursuit of Percy Bysshe Shelley's letters ("Aspern" is the fictionalized name). To get his hands on them, he's willing to seduce and break the heart of the highly intelligent, refined, aging caregiver (Joely Richardson) of Shelley's elderly mistress (Vanessa Redgrave). Long-secluded from the world in Venice, Redgrave is as venal as Vint. It's regrettable that the film didn't make this as clear as it could have, although Redgrave's acting is as usual magnificent and does what it can with the script and direction. From a certain perspective, "Tina" (Richardson) is the victim of both Redgrave's unwarranted fame as a "great man's" mistress and Vint's unwarranted power as a dissolute American with too much money.
I never lost interest in this film despite Rhys-Meyer's take on the (*not*) hero role. That Richardson's Tina falls for this self-promoter despite the incredible fortress pedigree and brains give her is a testimony to how excellent a seducer Vint is. Substitute Alec D'Urberville. Substitute Steerforth. Substitute any seducer from Victorian fiction for Vint, and you see what Rhys-Meyers must have been aiming for. He's loud, crude, stupid--but persistent. And his persistence pays off.
Joely Richardson is magnetic in her role. Vanessa Redgrave and the eponymous letters are MacGuffins in what is really a battle of wills between only two people--Richardson and Rhys-Meyers. Richardson represents intelligence, grace, and wisdom; Rhys-Meyers does a great job at venality, brute force, and unremarkable shrewdness. "The Aspern Papers" is a revenge-drama of sorts. A woman as much of a "fortress" (Rhys-Meyers calls both Tina and Redgrave that) in danger of humiliating herself for an opportunist saves herself and achieves true freedom, not the spurious kind a "free-spirit" (Redgrave) who just liked to bed a lot of men achieved so long ago--so long ago that in adulthood and old age, her life has been a never-ending prayer for death.
Richardson's physical appearance changes subtly but consistently from her first appearance to her last. The walls she and Redgrave keep in place to protect her from the world also tumble. The "Aspern" letters ironically snatch true love from the flames--an aging woman's love of self from the desperation she had fallen into, but not before she realizes that a man whose sole lust has always been for an object will necessarily be subhuman.