 |
Emily Watson in Hilary and Jackie
|
Her long, brown hair is everywhere, swirling to and fro, whipping around her dimpled face with unbridled passion. Famed cellist Jacqueline du Pré (Emily Watson) is an onstage, whirling dervish. It's no surprise when a string breaks on her cello. Although watching Watson's powerful performance as the turbulent du Pré, it's a bigger surprise that the entire concert stage doesn't collapse under the weight of her energy. Watson literally explodes onscreen. She's impossible not to watch. Her hands stroking the cello with elaborate gestures, Watson's combination of unbridled energy, charisma, childlike impatience and a girlish voice makes the troubled Jackie utterly compelling.
First-time director Anand Tucker struck dramatic gold with Hilary and Jackie. Based on the lives of the talented musical sisters Jacqueline and Hilary du Pré (Rachel Griffiths), Tucker's film follows the meteoric ascent of the richly talented Jackie, whose performances are legendary. More importantly, what Tucker accomplishes with Hilary and Jackie is to build a tumultuous sibling drama between these two sisters that equals the emotional power of their music. For Tucker, it is a dazzling achievement.
Comparisons to Shine, the recent Oscar favorite about pianist David Helfgott, are inevitable. Both films deal with Classical music and illness. But Hilary and Jackie's greatest emotional power lies not with Jackie's devastating fate, but within the ongoing sibling rivalry. This family melodrama (Frank Cottrell Boyce's screenplay is based on Hilary and Piers du Pré's book A Genius in the Family), even more than its beautiful score, is what sets Hilary and Jackie apart from the typical musical drama.
Ironically, Hilary was initially thought to be the more talented of the two. Performing at local talent contests in their bright ruffled dresses. Taking modern dance lessons from their mother. But Jackie soon outstripped her sister's talents, achieving worldwide stardom and the jetset life of an international artist. It wasn't long before Hilary gave up her musical career as a flutist to marry her loving boyfriend, Kiffer Finzi (David Morrissey), and raise a family in the English countryside.
Inevitably their talents wouldn't be equal. Pride for one's famous sibling can grow tiring. Despite Jackie's fame, her constant one-upmanship with her sister is unfailing. Jackie marries the famed pianist and conductor, Daniel Barenboim (James Frain), and converts to Judaism. Here Tucker shifts dramatic gears, retelling Jackie's diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at age 28.
The key fact that makes Jackie's physical decline so emotionally moving is that Watson's performance as the difficult prodigy is rich. Watson unfurls Jackie's character flaws with gusto. She is not a conventionally appealing movie character, but she is mesmerizing just the same. Showing up at the gate of her sister's country home, a depressed Jackie makes an unthinkable request.
"You know what I'm thinking about right now?," Jackie asks Hilary. "I'll tell you. I want to sleep with Kiffer. You don't mind, do you, sis? You did say that we'd share everything."
Griffiths offers strong support, as the neglected sister who finds true happiness with her own family, only to be threatened by her sister's jealousy. Watching Jackie flirt with her husband, Griffiths fills Hilary with tragic resolve. Her look of quiet desperation is devastating. Although it's Watson who gets the showier role, her feisty performance would have less impact without the balancing effect of Griffiths' restrained pain.
Hilary and Jackie asks for histrionics from Watson, and she delivers impressively. Rolling naked in the English countryside, she wails like a spoiled banshee. But throughout it all, Watson keeps du Pré three-dimensional. Her performance is more than dramatic shrieks and screams. Watson makes it clear that Jackie is a lonely and troubled celebrity.
Fans of Watson's startling work will not be surprised. Here is a worthy follow-up to her Oscar-nominated performance as the tortured wife, Tess McNeil, in Lars Van Trier's Breaking the Waves. She played a British suburban housewife in Metroland and Daniel Day-Lewis' ex-girlfriend in Jim Sheridan's The Boxer. Her film bio might still be small, but it's clear she is an incendiary screen presence. Jacqueline du Pré is the type of character made for Watson. Suffering characters are what she seems to do best. Much how Meryl Streep comes to life with new accents, Watson shines best when playing troubled characters. She acts with a fervor, as if in a trance. It's clear we won't see Watson in a romantic comedy anytime soon.
And when the illness strikes, Watson raises her performance to the next level of credibility. She drops her bow and loses control of her bladder. The illness sets in until she can't get up from her chair after a concert. It gets worse. What's important, however, isn't that Watson is so believable as the ailing du Pré -- although she is -- but that she creates a character so strong that you're dramatically hooked before the illness strikes.
To portray Watson's performance as some type of ultra-mimicry of du Pré's talent and illness is to disregard the emotional context. It's no longer relevant that Watson learned to play the cello and studied with doctors and patients to understand the effects of multiple sclerosis. What makes her performance so lifelike is the heart and soul she puts into it.
Cinematic representation of Classical music often dissolves into more bombastic costume dramas such as Milos Forman's 1984 Mozart drama Amadeus and Bernard Rose's Beethoven epic Immortal Beloved (1994) with Gary Oldman as the brooding genius. But Tucker keeps Hilary and Jackie more intimate, never forgetting that its drama is character-dependent. Not that the film's less-than-epic scale prevents Tucker from creating the artiest of art films. Tucker moves the camera freely, spinning around the two female protagonists. There are quick edits and a series of dissolves. With great flourish, Tucker shows the increasing collection of contest trophies that fill the family's mantle and a collage of du Pré's evening gowns appear with a blur of colors. Tucker even shifts gears, creating a narrative structure much like a musical score, offering two interpretations behind her nervous breakdown. It makes a powerful impact, revising history slightly, midway through the film, as more and more travel stickers appear on her cello case.
Tucker opens and closes the film in metaphysical fashion with the same image: Two young girls at play on a stark English beach. Their plaid skirts, sweaters and knee-high boots kick up the sand. A mysterious figure watches from a distance. It makes for a dreamlike bookend for the film. And as the music of Edward Elgar's "Cello Concerto" ripples across the screen, Tucker brings his tale back full circle to reveal the mysterious figure's identity. It's all part of the film's heartfelt message. The sacrifice people make for one's art.
"Would you still love me if I couldn't play?" du Pré asks her husband. His answer is telling. "But you wouldn't be you if you couldn't play."
It's a revealing life lesson, confirmed by Watson's extraordinary performance as du Pré, much as Tucker's film confirms Watson's stature as one of the most exciting screen talents in current film.
CityBeat grade: B.
