One can feel Glenn Close‘s devotion burning right through the screen in her latest project, Albert Nobbs. Not only does she lead the period drama, but she co-wrote the screenplay (her only writing credit in a four-decade career) and produced the feature. I saw it at Toronto last month and unfortunately, her passion and hard work doesn’t add up to much. The story is as derivative as this trailer suggests, with no thanks to the jarring music. An older crowd may eat up, as some in my audience surely did, but there is little new on the table here.
Mia Wasikowska, as usual, is the highlight with Brendan Gleeson providing some much-needed relief. Directed by Mother and Child‘s Rodrigo García, and also starring Janet McTeer, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Aaron Johnson and Pauline Collins, one can see the trailer below via Yahoo.
Synopsis:
A woman passes as a man in order to work and survive in 19th century Ireland. Some thirty years after donning men’s clothing, she finds herself trapped in a prison of her own making.
Albert Nobbs hits limited theaters January 27th, 2012, with an Oscar-qualifying run likely happening before the end of the year.