ALBERT NOBBS – The Review

Gender disguise has been used most predominately in movies for generating laughs. As a matter of fact, the American Film Institute, in their list of the greatest movie comedies ( via their TV special ” 100 Years, 100 Laughs ” ) , had TOOTSIE as number two and SOME LIKE IT HOT as number one. Most feature men dressing up as ladies to get a job in the former and escape gangsters in the latter. Occasionally dressing in drag has been used in dramatic films as in YENTL in which a woman assumed a male persona in order to gain an education. This theme is explored in the new film ALBERT NOBBS in which the title character attempts to circumvent nineteenth century society’s rules and create a better life for his/herself. Actress Glenn Close played the title character in an off-Broadway stage production thirty years ago. Since then she’s established herself as one of the great screen stars, but bringing this story to the screen has eluded her till now. Does this tale still resonate three decades later?

The slight, quiet, soft-featured Mr. Nobbs has worked as a waiter/valet at a luxury hotel ( for many guests, it is a boarding house ) for the owner/ operator Mrs.Baker for many years. Each night Nobbs retires to his sparse, meager servant’s room in the hotel and counts his tip money. He jots down the totals in a small diary, hides his savings under a floor board, and dreams of a better life. His plans are almost sidetracked by the arrival of a house painter, Hubert. Paige ( Janet McTeer ) . MINOR SPOILER ALERT ( well if you know the actors involved, it’s not too much of a twist ). Mrs. Baker insists that Mr. Paige share a room (and bed ) with Mr. Nobbs despite Albert’s protests. His fears come to pass as Paige learns Nobbs’s secret: he is a she ( a flea had made its way under Albert’s tightly strapped corset. Nobbs is more skittish than usual around Paige over the next few days until Paige reveals that he shares the same secret. Not only that, but she’s married and has a home in the back of his wife’s seamstress shop. Nobbs is fascinated and soon visits the couple. Can they give any advice on how Albert can follow his dream of owning a tobacco shop and sharing the living quarters with a wife ( perhaps the hotel’s lovely, young blonde housekeeper Helen Dawes ( Mia Wasikowska ). VERY MINOR SPOILERS DONE!

For such an unusal premise, the film is very low-key. It’s almost a PBS or BBC-America Victorian drama ramped up with a star cast and spiced up with gender disguise. Perhaps the main problem is Hobbs. We learn little of what drove him to this subterfuge besides a vague story about being poor, orphaned, and abused as a child. For most of the time he blends into the hallways of the hotel. A great deal is made of her perusal of the young Helen, but he has no real passion for her. When she demonstrates a ” lovers’ kiss” on Nobbs, he almost has an attack. Helen ‘s just one step of the big plan for Nobbs, who seems to be more passionate about operating the tobacco shop than romance. The shallow young woman only really cares for the hotel’s bad-boy Joe ( Aaron Johnson ), who’s the robust young eye candy for the hotel’s ladies. Wasikowska is not given a chance her to flex her acting chops here as she did in JANE EYRE and THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, while Johnson is riffing on the anti-social aspects of his young John Lennon from NOWHERE BOY. Close makes for a believable, wispy, older gentleman ( although the scenes of Albert going over his plans aloud don’t translate well from stage to screen ) and has a great rapport with McTeer’s Mr. Paige. Hubert is burly, rough, and quite a flirt with the maids and hotel owner ( who reciprocate ). It’s a role requiring charm and tenderness which McTeer nails down confidently. What perhaps resonates most from the film is not the gender politics ( or the affairs and secrets of the staff ), but the treatment of the working or servant class by the upper-crusts of high society. The bullying and the verbal (and often physical ) abuse is quite startling. ALBERT NOBBS is a well made journey through this long ago era, but unfortunately like it’s title character, the film is too formal and reserved. The film is strapped down tighter than Albert’s corset.

Overall Rating: Three and a Half Out of Five Stars