On the positive side, there was some interesting information about Dickenson's poetry being "cleaned up" after her death, to blot out things that might suggest "Unnatural Passions". And the secondary leads, Amy Ziegler as the beloved sister in law Susan and Amy Seimetz as the scheming Mabel, were very well acted and created three dimensional characters.
On the negative side, this simply did not work at all as a movie. Going from a play to a movie is often difficult -- think how many times the late great Robert Altman tried it and consistently failed. The characters were inconsistent; the dialog was often stilted and unnatural; the attempts to liven up the poems were appalling. The humor was all over the place, and even when the humor was successfully funny, it seemed out of place.
Molly Shannon as Emily did best when doing funny non-reactions to the universally buffoonish men in the movie. For most other emotions, she did not get them across to me, I'm sorry to say, since I've liked her in the past, as in 'Year of the Dog'.
I wish I had liked it better, but instead I kept wishing it would just end.
On the negative side, this simply did not work at all as a movie. Going from a play to a movie is often difficult -- think how many times the late great Robert Altman tried it and consistently failed. The characters were inconsistent; the dialog was often stilted and unnatural; the attempts to liven up the poems were appalling. The humor was all over the place, and even when the humor was successfully funny, it seemed out of place.
Molly Shannon as Emily did best when doing funny non-reactions to the universally buffoonish men in the movie. For most other emotions, she did not get them across to me, I'm sorry to say, since I've liked her in the past, as in 'Year of the Dog'.
I wish I had liked it better, but instead I kept wishing it would just end.