Aggravating

The boy and I watched the BBC film Tipping the Velvet over the weekend. Based on the Sarah Waters novel, I had high hopes for this after having watched their wonderful rendition of Fingersmith. They really fell down on the job on this one.

This movie is about a girl in the 1890's who leaves the safe world of her family's oyster house to the world of the stage and male impersonators and the dangerous world of London. It, of course, features Sarah Waters' usual lesbian romances. The story is a good one - or at least it was when I read it.

BBC films are usually done so lovely. This one was down by some ADD director who felt the need to use an insane number of camera tricks - flashbacks, lots of super fast cuts, and even more idiot effects. The narration annoyed me. The use of patently obvious visual queues was even worse. (Its easy to tell when one of the characters is feeling trapped, do we really need her to pose next to a bird in a cage?). They even changed the ending - same results but with an entirely different way of getting there. I felt misused by this film.

The one highlight was the costumes. They were fantastic. The rest of it was crap. I only give it a 2. (The book however is very very good).