KexUK and definitely lacking in the shoot-em-up, bawdy gratuitous sex scenes and Hollywood hype. This is not a film for the usual popcorn viewing brigade. Firstly, it is not (to it's enormous credit) a Hollywood produced film or even a big business film. It is privately funded and produced. Now, viewers will find this very hard to believe, for the excellence of scenery, costumes,attention to detail and cast role would certainly infer my earlier statements to be incorrect. Additionally, superb cinematography and scene placement produce sumptuous delights for the eyes. Furthermore, Emma Thompson's script is a lesson on period dialogue given clarity and flow to a modern generation. This is a film that demands your attention but will not pander to it. If you are not willing to give your mind and heart to it, don't blame the film. It's subtleties and nuances are exquisitely and delicately portrayed and I could find no area of the acting which in any way displeased me.On the contrary. Now I will grant that I'm an old guy and that I can remember in my childhood echoes of Edwardian-like darkened rooms and repressively collaborative furnishings, so there were echoes in the film I recognised that many a viewer today would not find relevant (hence, perhaps, some of the comments on this board). But...and it's a pretty big BUT....to describe this film as anything less than superb, a masterpiece, a true pageant of excellence in every department...and done without major company backing...would be a gross misrepresentation of film making.So, take that Hollywood!! Bam! Klash! Kaboom! So take that all you bigmoney film orgs! Kaboom. Good, indeed superb, films can be made without enormous expenditure and excessive hype. This is one of them.(but don't watch it if you only want to defend Ruskin or suppress the indomitable spirit of womanhood).

gradyharp EFFIE GRAY was strangely overlooked by the public despite a sterling cast enacting Emma Thompson's screenplay re-enacting the lives of the Victorians John Ruskin and is failed marriage to Effie Gray and the entry of romance between Effie and the brilliant Pre- Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. Perhaps the primary flaw in this little beautifully photographed period piece is Director Richard Laxton's sluggish pacing of the film – It does drag on forever, unnecessarily. (Laxton's other films include Burton and Taylor, River, and An Englishman in New York.)The basis of the film is a true Victorian scandal of Effie Gray being the first woman to divorce her husband. In 1848 the 29-year-old art and architecture critic, author and painter John Ruskin (Greg Wise) married Euphemia 'Effie' Gray (Dakota Fanning), the beautiful 19-year-old daughter of family friends. After six increasingly unhappy years, Effie fell in love with her husband's protégé the famous Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais (Tom Sturridge) and set about having the marriage annulled. What reverberated then and now was that the reason given for ending the union was non- consummation. But what really snagged in the public consciousness was Ruskin's explanation of why he didn't fulfill his marital duties (was he gay, simply repulsed by the fact that Effie has pubic hair unlike the classical female figures of art, etc – questions that have not been answered). Effie struggles with John's overbearing parents (Julie Walters and David Suchet), found solace with the prominent Eastlakes (Emma Thompson and James Fox), a doctor (Robbie Coltrane), and one Travers Twist (Derek Jacobi).The story is interesting, the characterizations excellent, the sets and scenery and costumes brilliant, and for a period piece this film is excellent. Audiences these days are simply more mature than to be 'shielded' form the facts of an unconsummated marriage and more emphasis could have been given to the fact the Effie was an early women's rights activist.

Angus T. Cat I was looking forward to seeing Effie Gray. I knew the story of Effie's marriage to John Ruskin from the TV series Desperate Romantics.I was very disappointed by the movie. While Desperate Romantics played the story for laughs, with a comic air, Effie Gray told the story dramatically. Or tried to, rather.The screenplay only told part of the tale of how Effie married John Ruskin but their marriage was unconsummated. No one knows exactly why, but it seems to be because of Ruskin's disgust with "her person". So perhaps the old story that Ruskin had never seen a naked woman and thought they were smooth like statues, and was repulsed to find on their wedding night that Effie had public hair, may have a grain of truth in it. The movie shows Effie and John finally getting away from his oppressive parents and living in Venice. However, Ruskin makes it clear that he is in Italy to work and leaves his wife to find her own amusement with Italian officers. Effie resists being seduced by one officer and realizes there's something she isn't getting in her marriage. However, the pace of the story moves slowly..... very slowly....I kept saying to my husband, when are they getting to the good bits? Finally Ruskin, Effie, and the artist Millais, leave for Scotland for Millais, to paint Ruskin's portrait. At last they were they getting to the dramatic bits when Millais and Effie fall in love. It was slow.... very slow... lots of scenes of rain and rocks and waterfalls and Ruskin making remarks that turn off Millais. The Ruskin in this movie is so cold and callus there's nothing sympathetic about him. Millais though is Mr Nice Guy without much depth to his character. And that's about it. Effie goes to see her friend (played by Emma Thompson) who discreetly arranges a lawyer for Effie, Effie invites her younger sister to visit her in London, Effie leaves the house with her sister, saying they are going to visit their mother in Scotland, and Effie serves Ruskin with annulment papers. The end. Where was the drama of the annulment? In this movie there is only a brief scene where Ruskin and his parents shut the door on the lawyer after the papers are given to him. There's no mention of the struggles Effie had to get the annulment through the courts, no mention of how she and Millais married a year after the annulment was granted, and no mention of how Effie was then not permitted to attend any occasion with Queen Victoria, as a woman who had been previously married could not be allowed in the presence of the Queen. This movie was a missed opportunity that took a gripping and fascinating story and turned the major characters one dimensional. Ruskin is a fruitcake, Millais Mr Nice Guy and Effie is an Innocent Victim. Shame- with a better screenplay and tighter direction this could have been a revealing drama about Victorian England behind closed doors. Too bad the script didn't allow any real drama to develop, and like Ruskin shied away from nakedness (There is a scene with Effie spying Millais taking a bath in a lake. Nice to have some full male nudity for the ladies. Alas, he is seen from the back and from a distance.) There's no risk of showing characters' raw and stripped emotions. There's no schmutz here- unlike in Desperate Romantics, which, with all its playing the historical facts with a light touch, led the audience to really care for Effie, Millais, and art in the nineteenth century.

narrowacres-550-659142 loved the movie, but Emma Thompson would be the best to play Hillary Clinton in a movie called {Hillary}!can someone put this together, or do you need me to write the plot! come on, think about it, at this time it would be a box office hit! If you need any ideas, I can help you out with this, although this movie (Effie Gray), Emma Thompson gave a very high performance. But she wood give justice playing the first lady of the United States of America, Hillary Clinton. her grace and undeniable resemblance of Hillary Clinton would make the box office hits go off the charts. There has to be someone out there that shares my thoughts and imagination of how this would be a good story about our nations first lady and the life of the Clintons.