Saying that Benedict Cumberbatch is a versatile actor is putting it mildly. Having done star turns as Hamlet, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Strange, and Alan Turing among others, here he is the far less well known but fascinating Victorian artist Louis Wain. One thing that most of BC's roles have in common though is that they are fairly cerebral figures: they live in their minds. I don't know of any other actor who can do this kind of persona on screen more convincingly. Wain himself was a truly peculiar figure: he specialized in drawing and painting cats, and as time went on the late-Victorian-era public eventually ate up the odd charm of his work. He would have been far more successful if he'd had an ounce of business sense, but as it was he always lived on the edge of poverty.
It didn't help that insanity ran in Wain's family too, and he himself teetered on the edge of mental illness as well. As far as I've been able to check, the events of the movie follow his life pretty accurately. He was by turns eccentric, focussed, happy, depressive, lucky, shy, manic, unlucky, tormented, delightful -- every contrast and internal contradiction you can imagine. He was the kind of off-kilter figure that somehow Victorian England seemed to foster.
I've always liked Cumberbatch but until seeing this film I didn't fully realize how *physical* an actor he can be. He invests his whole body in the role and not just his dialog. Look at the way his Wain simply walks down the street here -- short rapid strides, uncertain, shy, nervous. Compare that with his Sherlock Holmes, with his confident, almost arrogant stride. Things like that make up real mastery.
Claire Foy isn't on screen quite as much but she's excellent as the love of Louis' life Emily Richardson. Emily shows up as the appealing governess to his youngest sisters, and the central tragedy of both their lives is that they have so little time together. Emily's single line "just when I was starting to enjoy it", spoken with her signature positive stiff-upper-lip nature, is heartbreaking. And if it weren't for the over-the-top peculiarity of Louis, she too would be seen as eccentric in her own way.
It's a beautiful film to look at. The outdoor scenes are intensely colorful, the late Victorian ambience is meticulously rendered as only the English can do, and Arthur Sharpe's score is lovely. One very odd thing about the production, though, is the screen aspect ratio of all things. It's almost square, like early movies decades ago. It's obviously intentional but it's just not clear what the point is. Is it supposed to make things feel more like an old movie? More claustrophobic perhaps?
Very much worth seeing. Louis Wain is a forgotten figure whose story needed to be told.
It didn't help that insanity ran in Wain's family too, and he himself teetered on the edge of mental illness as well. As far as I've been able to check, the events of the movie follow his life pretty accurately. He was by turns eccentric, focussed, happy, depressive, lucky, shy, manic, unlucky, tormented, delightful -- every contrast and internal contradiction you can imagine. He was the kind of off-kilter figure that somehow Victorian England seemed to foster.
I've always liked Cumberbatch but until seeing this film I didn't fully realize how *physical* an actor he can be. He invests his whole body in the role and not just his dialog. Look at the way his Wain simply walks down the street here -- short rapid strides, uncertain, shy, nervous. Compare that with his Sherlock Holmes, with his confident, almost arrogant stride. Things like that make up real mastery.
Claire Foy isn't on screen quite as much but she's excellent as the love of Louis' life Emily Richardson. Emily shows up as the appealing governess to his youngest sisters, and the central tragedy of both their lives is that they have so little time together. Emily's single line "just when I was starting to enjoy it", spoken with her signature positive stiff-upper-lip nature, is heartbreaking. And if it weren't for the over-the-top peculiarity of Louis, she too would be seen as eccentric in her own way.
It's a beautiful film to look at. The outdoor scenes are intensely colorful, the late Victorian ambience is meticulously rendered as only the English can do, and Arthur Sharpe's score is lovely. One very odd thing about the production, though, is the screen aspect ratio of all things. It's almost square, like early movies decades ago. It's obviously intentional but it's just not clear what the point is. Is it supposed to make things feel more like an old movie? More claustrophobic perhaps?
Very much worth seeing. Louis Wain is a forgotten figure whose story needed to be told.