The Cinema Girl | Angels & Insects (1995)

DVD REVIEW | Serena Donadoni | William Adamson (Mark Rylance), a naturalist recently returned from the Amazon jungle, stands uncomfortably in the midst of an ornate formal dance at a lavish English country estate. Shipwrecked en route to England, he lost most of his valuable specimens and detailed journals, and must now rely on the benevolence of his patron, Sir Harald Alabaster (Jeremy Kemp), for his well-being. Director Philip Haas has adapted Angels & Insects from A.S. Byatt's novella Morpho Eugenia — an ingenious blend of entomology, theology and psychology — and documents Adamson's journey within the confined world of the Alabaster family. This observer of the natural world's minutiae now finds himself in a Victorian household as rigidly ordered as the ant colonies he spent his career documenting. While beholden to the Darwin-reading patriarch, William is drawn like a moth to a flame to the seemingly fragile eldest daughter, Eugenia (Patsy Kensit). The pair's obvious social and financial inequities are overlooked by parents eager to see Eugenia happy, particularly after the mysterious death of a former fiancé. Eugenia seems more concerned that she not to be beaten to the altar by a younger sister, and William is content to marry into this clan, even if he has to deal with her crude and hostile brother, Edgar (Douglas Henshall). The demure Eugenia turns out to be a voracious lover and William enters a cycle of arousal and rejection as she goes through a series of pregnancies. His hopes of returning to his travels — and an independent career — are squelched as each new baby arrives. Within this household dense with relatives and servants, he starts to notice the witty Matty Crompton (Kristin Scott Thomas), who begins helping him to educate the younger Alabasters. It's through the resourceful Matty, whose limited environment can't contain her expansive intelligence, that William finally comprehends the real inner workings of the household. More neurotic than exotic, Angels & Insects is weakened by two central performances: the punch-drunk Mark Rylance and transparently manipulative Patsy Kensit. They are countered by Kristin Scott Thomas's sharp portrayal of a vivacious woman lurking under layers of repression and propriety, one with enough fire to warm even the emotionally frozen William. Philip Haas (The Music of Chance) occasionally soars beyond period piece perfunctory, as in the hypnotic Amazon sequence and an impossibly lovely torch-lit game of charades. Composer Alexander Balanescu complements the action with a sinuous yet soothing Michael Nymanesque score. The film's biggest misstep is the distracting and garish costume design: when Eugenia appears in a yellow and black striped dress that makes her resemble an overgrown bumblebee, this Merchant Ivory wannabe wanders into Saturday Night Live territory. The insect metaphors are more glaring and obvious in Philip Haas's film than in A.S. Byatt's book, but Angels & Insects does successfully demonstrate the great central irony of an entomologist caught up in his own net. William Adamson finds himself the prized specimen in a gilded cage, and discovers that the only thing he desires more than knowledge is freedom.

ANGELS & INSECTS | 1995

Cast: Mark Rylance (William Adamson), Kristin Scott Thomas (Matty Crompton), Patsy Kensit (Eugenia Alabaster Adamson), Douglas Henshall (Edgar Alabaster), Jeremy Kemp (Sir Harald Alabaster), Annette Badland (Lady Alabaster), Saskia Wickham (Rowena Alabaster), Michelle Sylvester (Margaret Alabaster), Clare Lovell (Elaine Alabaster), Jenny Lovell (Edith Alabaster), Oona Haas (Alice Alabaster), Angus Hodder (Guy Alabaster), Chris Larkin (Robin), Anna Massey (Miss Mead), Paul Ready (Tom), Naomi Gudge (Martha), and John Jenkins (Ralph Blackwood).

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