I loved this film. It's based on a book by Clare Tomalin on Charles Dickens (which I haven't read) of the same title.
It's about Dickens' love affair with an actress named Ellen Ternan. In many ways, it's a quite interesting story. I was surprised to learn about Dickens' affair because he seemed to me to be such an connoiseur of fine family feeling in his fiction that I imagined that sensibility would be a central part of his own family life.
As shown in the film, he was close friends with Wilkie Collins, who was also living with a woman outside of marriage. What the film doesn't show is that Collins had two mistresses.
The reason I loved the film, however, was not the interesting biographical facts it contained. It was the acting, which I thought was sublime.
Ralph Fiennes played Dickens; Felicity Jones played Ellen Ternan; Kirstin Scott Thomas played Ellen Ternan's mother, an actress of some distinction, and Tom Hollander played Collins.
It's about Dickens' love affair with an actress named Ellen Ternan. In many ways, it's a quite interesting story. I was surprised to learn about Dickens' affair because he seemed to me to be such an connoiseur of fine family feeling in his fiction that I imagined that sensibility would be a central part of his own family life.
As shown in the film, he was close friends with Wilkie Collins, who was also living with a woman outside of marriage. What the film doesn't show is that Collins had two mistresses.
The reason I loved the film, however, was not the interesting biographical facts it contained. It was the acting, which I thought was sublime.
Ralph Fiennes played Dickens; Felicity Jones played Ellen Ternan; Kirstin Scott Thomas played Ellen Ternan's mother, an actress of some distinction, and Tom Hollander played Collins.
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