"The Governess" is one of those films you want to like--an independent effort to tell the story of people we rarely here about, the Jewish community in Victorian England. But instead of telling their story, or the story of Rosina (played by an excellent Minnie Driver)as she discovers herself and her love for photography, it spends all its time on an improbable romance. It's really rather demeaning for the beautiful, intelligent, young Rosina to fall so absolutely in love with her employer (Tom Wilkinson). To be blunt, he's not young, not at all good looking, not kind, and a lot dumber than she is. The romance, in other words, never works. And why, may I ask, do all female coming-of-age films have to center on love and sex? I expected a lot from this film, and I'm afraid I was quite disappointed.
Review of The Governess
