Daphne

Daphne is a period drama biopic BBC TV movie about Daphne du Marier. And I want to give the BBC their props. They’ve released a handful of WLW TV movies, many of which are costume dramas. That’s a necessary niche to fill. And these BBC TV movies are of a solid, uniform quality. Daphne is no exception. This is a good movie. But that’s as far as I’m willing to go. The BBC might make consistently good TV movies but few of their movies, or at least, the WLW ones, are great.

Still, it’s admirable that the focus of their 2007 Daphne du Marier movie deals so much with her bisexuality. The era the film covers is very much a footnote in du Marier’s life. Daphne is in between hits. She’s released Rebecca to huge popularity, but now? Daphne’s a bit blocked. She’s also sick to death of Rebecca because it’s the only thing people talk to her about. It turns out, a beautiful woman is the exception to this rule. Daphne meets her publisher’s wife, Ellen. Ellen loves Rebecca and immediately draws Daphne into conversation about it. The women develop a friendship after this initial meeting. This friendship grows deeper, especially on Daphne’s part. But tragically, Ellen is a full heterosexual. Daphne then sublimates her unrequited feelings into a new play. Her sublimation perhaps continues when she and lead actress, Gertrude Lawrence begin an affair.

The best parts of the film is the incorporation of du Marier’s real letters and journal entries from this time in her life. That woman knew how to write! There’s some real peak angst-filled sapphic yearning in those words. And again, I think it’s admirable that this film did its research. This isn’t du Marier 101. This is a specific time in her life complete with primary sources to pull from. On the downside, little of the film’s written dialogue matches up to du Marier’s words. The poetry in these voice-overs rarely carries over into actual conversation in the film. Turns out, not just anyone can be Daphne du Marier and that TV movie writing might fail to live up to that standard.

While the dialogue in the film is merely serviceable, I do admire the themes and structure of this story. There’s more here than historical figure has gay affairs. The interplay of her relationships with Ellen and Gertrude is really interesting. Does she actually care for Gertrude? Or is it sublimated affection for Ellen? It’s also great how she’s able to explore this complexity while having a husband. He doesn’t factor into this. This is Daphne’s story. And in Daphne’s story, she’s gonna kiss a woman. The film pulls this off with some depth while sticking to the very specific 90 minute runtime TV movies are seemingly beholden to.

The visual and technical elements are always the bit of TV movies that fail to inspire me. Which is not to say anything here is bad. Far from it. The BBC can costume a drama like no other. They know their strengths and play well to them. But there seems to be little space in a BBC TV movie for directorial flourish. This is certainly not the project to get ambitious on. This means that Daphne visually looks like at least 50 other BBC costume dramas. There’s little unique identity to the look of this movie. This is further disappointing in this case because it’s Daphne du Marier! And the film deals so specifically with Rebecca. You might wish for a little more atmosphere, ideally of the classic gothic style. And by “you,” I mean me.

Daphne is a perfectly fine movie. I liked it, though I certainly didn’t love it. While I admire much of the story, the execution is a bit too cookie-cutter for my tastes. But in this case the cookie-cutter elements include doing every technical aspect to a solid level of competence. So, that is good news. But as you might be able to tell, I can’t get too excited about yet another BBC costume drama.

Overall rating: 6.4/10

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