Effie Gray (2014)

Effie Gray
Director: Richard Laxton
Writer: Emma Thompson
Stars: Dakota Fanning, Emma Thompson, Greg Wise, Tom Sturridge
2014
(IMDb)

Every delay that postpones our joys is long. --- Ovid

This film, originally entitled just Effie, was released last year (2014) in UK, though it was at first planned to be open to the public a few years earlier.
The primary cause of its deferment was an alleged plagiarism by the screenwriter (Emma Thompson) and a series of court following that.

Anyway, we can now enjoy this long-delayed film.

Effie Gray is on a love triangle in the art world of the Victorian age.
The story is quite famous ---

In 1848 (also the year of the foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood [PRB]), John Ruskin, then authority in the art circles, married Euphemia "Effie" Gray, about 10 years younger than her husband.
Unfortunately, their wedlock did not last so long; for Effie wearied of the marriage life without consummation, from which Ruskin abstained for some complex reasons.

Their marriage was finally annulled in 1854, which caused a major scandal.
In the following year, Effie married again John Everett Millais, one of the three leading members of the PRB along with Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt.
What was ironical was that Ruskin was their influential patron. ---

As for the film itself, I felt something lacking (though as a fan of Dakota Fanning, I was well satisfied).
In view of the fact that this love story is a quite well-known one, the overall plot seemed to be somewhat tedious.
I think the screenwriter played it too straight.

It was also a little letdown for me that so little time was devoted to depict Effie's second matrimony compared with her first one.

As the Guardian review exactly said, Effie Gray was "a handsome but inert portrait".
It is truly beautiful and sympathetic yet something is lacking.

There is, however, something I found very interesting through this 108 minutes.
I did not know about Elizabeth Eastlake (played by Emma Thompson) and her intimate relationship with Effie especially during the period of aforementioned annulment proceedings.

It might be intriguing to study their relationship including Lady Eastlake's husband, Charles Lock Eastlake (first pupil of Benjamin Robert Haydon and 7th President of the Royal Academy of Arts).

A few years ago, it was reported that Keira Knightley also would play Effie in Untouched (The Film Stage [7 November, 2011]).
Although it seems there are not any further particulars, I am looking forward to watching it.