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The work of Henry James , matters of era-appropriate primness and stylistic obscurantism aside, has plenty of narrative intrigue and juice. Which hasn’t stopped film adaptors of James’ work from tricking things up every now and then. On the plus side you’ve got Jacques Rivette ’s 1974 “Celine and Julie Go Boating,” which built a through-the-looking-glass main story around a theatricalized treatment of James’ odder-than-usual novel The Other House , and Scott McGehee and David Siegel ’s 2012 “ What Maisie Knew ,” which laid out James’ story in a completely contemporary setting with bracing results.

Then there was Michael Winner ’s 1971 “The Nightcomers,” a Turn of the Screw prequel that posited kinky goings-on between not-yet-dead Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, an item of interest mainly to fans of a near-dissolute Marlon Brando and a not at all dissolute Stephanie Beacham . Gonzo, but not exactly good.

And now there’s “The Aspern Papers,” which takes the possibly even more eccentric tack of playing a story about literary legacies and lost loves as if it’s “Interview With A Vampire” and sometimes even a Hammer horror film.

Directed by Julian Landais, an actor and onetime model, the movie doesn’t lack for lush appearances. The story is set in Venice, and begins with the evocation of the 19 th -centuy poet Jeffrey Aspern, who is seen, Shelley-like, washing up dead on an immaculately-kept shore and being burned as his young lover clutches a folded sheaf of letters to her bosom. The aforementioned papers, you see. Years later, the American protagonist and narrator, Morton Vint, worms his way into the Venice villa occupied by the aged Julianna Bourdereau ( Vanessa Redgrave ) and her middle-aged unwed niece Tina ( Joely Richardson , Ms. Redgrave’s real-life daughter). Julianna is the now-elderly possessor of those papers. Now a recluse, she is not inclined to share these documents, particularly with nosy literary types.

Although he’s playing a man of letters, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers swans around the film’s settings with a pout that suggests that he’s waiting for his cue to sing “Please allow me to introduce myself.” He offers his services as a gardener to the lonely ladies, while agreeing to pay an inordinately high rent for his quarters. Why this strategy is supposed to work with respect to getting his hands on those letters isn’t given much consideration here. Casting the movie as a sort of battle of wills between Julianna and Morton, and allowing both Rhys-Meyers and Redgrave to glare at each other and apply ripely melodramatic readings to dialogue that does, in large part, derive from the original, the movie gives short shrift to Tina.

This character is a classic Jamesian shut-in, in the tradition of Stransom in “The Alter of the Dead” and Catherine Sloper in “ Washington Square ,” an inward-inclined protagonist who makes some attempt to engage the outside world with unfortunate results. This peculiar and ineffectual film shunts her aside in favor of all manner of posturing, not just those between Rhys-Meyers and Redgrave, but a dippy if pictorial ménage-a-trois for the flashback Aspern and the eligible-single-ladies-packed salon life of Vint’s improbable (as rendered here, at least) Venice pal Mrs. Prest.

The executive producer here is James Ivory , who as director helmed some much more straightforward, and effective, James adaptations in the '70s and '80s, one of which also featured Vanessa Redgrave, 1984’s “ The Bostonians .” Check it out!

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

The Aspern Papers (2019)

Rated R for some sexuality/nudity.

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Morton Vint

Vanessa Redgrave as Juliana Bordereau

Joely Richardson as Miss Tina

Lois Robbins as Mrs Prest

Poppy Delevingne as Signora Colonna

Morgane Polanski as Valentina

Jon Kortajarena as Jeffrey Aspern

• Julien Landais

Writer (based on the novel by)

• Henry James
• Hannah Bhuiya
• Jean Pavans

Cinematography

• Philippe Guilbert
• Hansjörg Weißbrich
• Vincent Carlo

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Review: Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson shine, but latest ‘Aspern Papers’ falters

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“The Aspern Papers” have been something of a family business for the Redgrave acting clan for more than half a century, and the new film version continues that tradition with a range of results.

It all started in 1959, when Vanessa’s father, Michael, did a stage adaptation of the 1888 Henry James novella about a deeply obsessive American’s quest for never-published letters of a long dead Romantic poet, letters in the possession of a now elderly British woman living in Venice who was once his lover.

Some 25 years later, Vanessa won an Olivier Award for playing the aged woman’s niece in a London production of the play.

Now, 35 years after that, Redgrave, at 81, is old enough to play that elderly party with conviction and elan, and her daughter Joely Richardson takes on the role of the niece.

It is a treat to see these women share the screen (they’ve done it before, in 1985’s “Wetherby” and even on an episode of TV’s “Nip/Tuck”) and a pleasure to report that they are both excellent. About the rest of the film, however, the news is not so good.

Though its literary plot wouldn’t seem to be ideal for the big screen, James’ work has in fact been made into a film four times previously, starting with a lurid 1947 production called “The Lost Moment” with Agnes Moorehead and Susan Hayward in the roles Redgrave and Richardson take on here.

Nothing daunted, French director Julien Landais has tackled the book for his feature debut after making a handful of shorts and doing a decade of commercials and music videos.

Co-writing the script with Jean Pavans and Hannah Bhuiya, Landais has made a version of “Aspern” that is too often uncertain and unconvincing despite the good work of his female stars. And when the actresses leave the screen and the film ventures into ill-advised flashback territory, things get shakier still.

The Aspern of the title is a celebrated writer (apparently based on Shelley) named Jeffrey Aspern who, we are told in voiceover, was “the most brilliant poet of his day, and the most genial and handsome of men.”

Telling us this is Morton Vint, a callow cocky American raggedly played by Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who has done excellent work since coming to notice in Todd Haynes’ “Velvet Goldmine” but seems miscast here.

The world’s reigning expert on Aspern as well as an arrogant fop much given to dressing gowns and open-necked white shirts, Vint has come to Venice to track down Juliana Bordereau (Redgrave), once Aspern’s muse and lover and the woman he believes has a trove of Aspern’s letters in her possession.

Because Juliana is known to resist people like him, Vint resorts to a ruse. He uses a fake name and asks to rent rooms in her enormous Venetian palazzo on the dubious premise that he loves the horticultural potential of her decrepit garden.

As a woman of very great age, next door to decrepit herself, Redgrave is effortlessly commanding as this most iron-willed of matriarchs.

Wheeled around the palazzo in a mobile chair, dressed only in black except for a green eye shade that makes her look like the world’s oldest blackjack dealer, this is a woman who takes almost spiteful delight in saying just what she thinks no matter the consequences.

Regrettably, “The Aspern Papers” also flashbacks to Juliana in her youth (Alice Aufray), when she made merry with Aspern (Jon Kortajarena) and another young man referred to in the credits only as The Romantic Poet (Nicolas Hau.) To say that these sequences play like arty European commercials is to give those advertising spots a bad name.

Back in the present day, Juliana lives with Miss Tina, her niece, played by Richardson with considerable subtlety, allowing the character to start out hesitant and repressed but gradually develop her own agenda.

James’ theme of abhorrence toward the cult of personality comes through here despite the stodgy film making, as when Juliana asks Vint, “Do you think it’s right to rake up the past? The truth belongs to God.” It’s a strong moment in a film that does not have enough of them.

Rated: R, for some sex, nudity.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Playing : Laemmle’s Royal, West Los Angeles.

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Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays a snooping biographer in Julien Landais' Henry James adaptation 'The Aspern Papers.'

By THR Staff

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Henry James’ esteemed 1888 story The Aspern Papers has inspired many adaptations, from operas to radio dramas to films in multiple languages. One of the most famous was a 1959 stage version by Michael Redgrave, who also starred in it; Redgrave’s daughter Vanessa appeared in a 1984 revival of the play, and now returns in a different role for Julien Landais’ film of the Venice-set drama — with her daughter Joely Richardson playing her old part. The Redgrave clan can’t be blamed for the badness of this movie, which feels like being buried in a chest with the musty papers its protagonist seeks. Perhaps someday Richardson, the movie’s brightest point, will take another crack at things, playing her mother’s part with a better filmmaker at the helm.

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In his feature directing debut, Landais appears to equate stiff expressionlessness with seething intellectual passion: From his lead actor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers , he elicits a performance in which James’ language is as dead as 131-year-old words can be. The mannequin-like performance (in a raspy, distracting Bostonian accent) would be the closing argument for any film buff arguing that Meyers owes his career solely to his chiseled fashion-model looks.

Release date: Jan 11, 2019

Meyers plays Morton Vint, a literary biographer (unnamed in James’ book) obsessed with the Romantic poet Jeffery Aspern, who died decades ago but is revered not just as “one of the greatest poets” but the “most genial” and “most handsome” as well. If this glowing recommendation doesn’t inspire us to share Vint’s longing for the dead man, Landais offers plentiful flashbacks to his love life — MOS softcore, accompanied by rhapsodic piano music, that are what Skin-emax would have looked like if its execs were virginal Brit-Lit scholars.

Believing that Aspern’s onetime lover Juliana Bordereau (Redgrave) has a trove of intimate letters from him that he simply must read, Vint goes to her, lying about his identity and intent. Meeting the standoffish woman in her sepulchral Venice estate, he claims to want to rent a room so that he can grow flowers in the house’s abandoned garden. Suspicious, she asks for an exorbitant sum; he agrees immediately.

Bordereau has her own ulterior motives: She nudges the young man into spending time with her niece Tina (Richardson), who has given up contact with the outside world to care for her. Richardson initially plays Tina as painfully formal, but her eyes soon brighten, lending some emotional mystery to a tale that should already have had plenty of it. While Vint goes leadenly about his detective work, Tina warms toward helping him, balancing her familial duty against the possibility of love.

Though filmed in Venice and executive produced by James Ivory, the picture feels like a very distant relation to the transporting period pieces Ivory once made with Ismail Merchant and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala — films in which no actor ever seemed unsure what the words he was speaking meant, and no viewer failed to share the passions onscreen. Passion is spoken of and clumsily envisioned in The Aspern Papers , but not a drop of it is felt.

Production companies: Summerstorm Entertainment, Princeps Films, Cohen Media Group Distributor: Cohen Media Group Cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Vanessa Redgrave , Joely Richardson Director: Julien Landais Screenwriters: Jean Pavans, Julien Landais, Hannah Bhuiya Producers: Gabriela Bacher, Julien Landais Executive producers: Charles S. Cohen, James Ivory Director of photography: Philippe Guilbert Production designer: Livia Borgognoni Costume designer: Birgit Hutter Editor: Hansjorg Weissbrich Composer: Vincent Carlo Casting director: Celestia Fox

Rated R, 90 minutes

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The Unwise Candor of “The Aspern Papers”

By Anthony Lane

First published in 1888, Henry James’s “ The Aspern Papers ” tells of a littérateur who goes to Venice in search of letters relating to a long-dead Romantic poet named Jeffrey Aspern. They are rumored to survive in the clutches of an elderly recluse named Juliana Bordereau, who was once, in her far-off youth, a lover of Aspern’s. Now she resides in a Venetian palazzo, in the care of her nervous niece. Neither woman ventures out, but the scholar-hunter, who is also our narrator, burrows in—renting rooms in their home, “laying siege to it with my eyes,” and patiently plotting to get his hands on the papers, which he regards as holy relics. Lest he be recognized and expelled, he assumes an alias; his real name is one of the many things we never learn. This is Venice, after all, where so much is glimpsed rather than seen steadily and whole.

In 1959, the actor and director Michael Redgrave appeared in a stage version of James’s novella, in London. The adaptation was by Redgrave himself, and he played the bookish intruder. Three years later, when the play opened on Broadway, the role of Tina, the niece, was taken by Wendy Hiller (her understudy was Olympia Dukakis). There was a revival in 1984, by which time Hiller was sufficiently venerable to play Juliana, the proud aunt, while the part of Tina went to Redgrave’s daughter Vanessa. Now she is Juliana, in Julien Landais’s film of “The Aspern Papers,” and Tina is played by Joely Richardson, who is, of course, the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave. If these connections make your head spin, as the fictional Jamesian family and the real Redgravian one are woven together, well, the claustrophobic texture of the story, with its blend of brittleness and languor, deserves no less. Sometimes it’s fun to be spun.

“The Aspern Papers,” in its latest incarnation, stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the trespasser. He introduces himself as Edward Sullivan, though he’s actually, and weirdly, called Morton Vint. (Not to be confused with Horton Vint, an unscrupulous fellow in James’s “ The Ivory Tower ,” which was posthumously published in 1917.) Near the start, he promises Juliana that, as her tenant, he will grow flowers beside her house, possessed as he is by “the idea of a garden in the middle of the sea.” The lush phrase comes directly from James. More often than not, Landais plucks morsels of dialogue or narration from the text and drops them, barely altered, into the film—a sensible procedure, not least at those moments of intensity which pierce the placid surface of the action. Tina says of her aunt, for instance, who has lived so long, “She’d like to try dying for a change,” and the words come as a hard sardonic shock.

It’s when Landais departs from the original, or has a bright idea for expanding on it, that the movie’s troubles begin. A “rich dim Shelley drama,” James said of the backdrop to his tale, and there are streaks of both Shelley and Byron in the figure of Aspern, although James, in a bold act of cultural wish fulfillment, made him American, too. On the page, however, he eludes our grasp, guarded by the author’s perennial urge to keep us guessing, whereas Landais clings to the principle that, if you’ve got a poet, you might as well put him on show.

Thus, we get not only snatches of Aspern’s verse (purloined from Shelley, with a scrap of Keats thrown in) but also, at regular intervals, flashbacks to his scandalous life. These are sensationally unwise, with the young bard (Jon Kortajarena) and the young Juliana (Alice Aufray) making gooey eyes at each other and displaying that soulful ardor available only to well-bred residents of the early nineteenth century. Sometimes the couple are joined by yet another smolderer, described in the credits as “Second Romantic Poet” and played by Nicolas Hau. The resulting threesome, intended to set the screen ablaze, gives off the unmistakable whiff of a perfume commercial, and I longed for a voice-over, in a rich baritone, to make the scene complete: “Poetry. The new fragrance. From Aspern. Smell the past.”

Much of this movie, to be honest, is conducted on the level of amateur dramatics, in particular as we stray beyond the bounds of the palazzo. Not even the costumes are spared; a friend of Morton’s, Mrs. Prest (Lois Robbins), chooses to glide along in a gondola wearing a top hat and round black sunglasses, in an uncanny premonition of Slash, the lead guitarist from Guns N’ Roses. Morton, by contrast, favors dark velvets, extra-high collars, and loose white shirts, in a bid to seem as Aspern-like as possible. As outfits go, it’s suave enough, but Meyers confines the majority of his expressions to a blink-free glare, occasionally veiled in an artful puff of cigarette smoke, and the over-all impression is of somebody not living and breathing so much as striking a pose.

Yet all is not lost, for the opposite is true of Joely Richardson, who hints at the steeliness inside Tina’s fragile frame, and of the redoubtable Vanessa Redgrave. Initially, her face is half covered by a green shade, of the type that Carl Sandburg used to sport, and, as she raises it, to reveal the ferocity of those blue unfaded eyes, we sense that we are in the presence of a great actress who has grown up with “The Aspern Papers” and feels its cautionary power. What James delivered, in 1888, was not some dusty antiquarian fable but a warning call against the cult of celebrity that was already on the rise, and against the modern insistence that artists and writers can—or should—be prized out of their work like cockles from a shell, for public consumption. A horror of that craving is what glitters in Redgrave’s gaze and resounds in the snap of her voice, with its mocking emphases. “I don’t care who you are,” Juliana says to Morton at their first encounter. Then, as her suspicions deepen, she asks him, “Do you observe me? Do you spy on me?,” before turning the tables and declaring, with a triumphant air, “You say you want to see me, but I spy on you .” The final syllable is stretched out into a croon, as if she were casting a spell.

As the story quickens, we arrive at the witching hour. Redgrave, having spent most of the film in a wheelchair, suddenly enters on foot, stumbling but determined, her hands extended like claws and her long gray hair unbound. It’s a startling spectacle, worthy of ancient tragedy. “Publishing scoundrel ,” Juliana exclaims, head on to the camera, as she catches Morton rifling through her desk. Her desire to bury herself in the past is as crazed as his urge to dig her up. No movie of “The Aspern Papers,” this one included, can ever wholly capture that madness, but Redgrave, like her father before her, and in the company of her daughter, comes close. In the age of the hacker, and from the confines of a period drama, she issues a magnificent plea for the private life, and a rebuke to our unconscionable demand: Let us pry.

Now is the season for cloistering. Juliana Bordereau may be fenced off from the world, but at least she dwelt in it once, and sampled its delights, before electing to shut herself away, whereas Suzanne Simonin (Anna Karina), in “The Nun,” has seclusion forced upon her. The year is 1757. Her parents, unable and unwilling to pay her dowry, demand that she enter a convent, and, at the dawn of Jacques Rivette’s film, we see them seated, finely dressed, watching through a grille of iron bars as she prepares for her vows. It’s an extraordinary image: an unholy hybrid of prison and theatre, guaranteed to make any Foucault readers in the cinema swoon for joy. Yet Suzanne recoils, not because she is a rebel or a heretic but simply because she lacks a spiritual calling. “What is happening in your soul?” she is asked, a while later. “Nothing,” she replies.

The pressure on her, though, is unrelenting, especially from her shrunken-hearted mother (Christiane Lénier). “Daughter, you have nothing. You never will,” she says, and so it is that Suzanne takes the veil, and submits to a succession of mother superiors. She is loved and encouraged by the first, starved by the second, and sexually harassed by the third; not one of them, I regret to report, suggests that she climb every mountain, ford every stream, or pursue any other healthy outdoor activities. Even when she does escape, in the final reel, the people she meets outside the convent walls continue to take abusive advantage of her. Fresh starts lead to dead ends.

The movie, which is based on Diderot’s provocative novel of 1796, dates from 1966, and is being honored with a two-week run at Film Forum, through January 17th. It’s an inspiring choice of revival, for two reasons. One, “The Nun” defies its reputation; I remembered it as being austere to the point of desiccation, lacking the playfulness for which Rivette is usually revered, but, seen anew, it writhes with almost uncontainable surges of anger, lust, and distress. (Why is it such a blessing to be proved wrong in our critical tastes, and is it only serial moviegoers who feel that way?) Two, Suzanne’s time has come again. “I’m asking to be free because my freedom wasn’t sacrificed willingly,” she says, and viewers versed in the rigors of “ The Handmaid’s Tale ” should find plenty to obsess and outrage them in “The Nun.” Another time, another place, but the same old keys of repression, turning in rusty locks. ♦

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‘The Aspern Papers’ has plenty of pedigree but little passion

It’s useful to know a few things about “The Aspern Papers” going in:

For instance, the movie is based on an 1888 novella by Henry James , about a man obsessed with obtaining a secret cache of love letters from a poet who died tragically young. It stars the great Vanessa Redgrave as the woman who zealously guards those letters; Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the man who zealously seeks them; and Redgraves’s daughter Joely Richardson as the poor soul caught between them. It was co-produced by James Ivory, whose résumé includes directing credits on such sterling literary adaptations as “ A Room with a View ” and a producing credit for “Call Me By Your Name.” And it has been adapted many, many times — for film, television, opera, radio and the stage. (This version, as it happens, was co-written by Jean Pavans, based on his 2002 French play, “Les Papiers d’Aspern,” along with Hannah Bhuiya and director Julien Landais.)

What all that tells you is that the film is smart, literary, nuanced, slightly stagy — and pedigreed to within an inch of its life. It practically reeks of dusty, yellowed pages and engraved leather bookbinding.

What this almost certainly does not guarantee is a rollicking good time, even by the constrained standards of such deeply internalized material, which, like many films of its ilk, is more about psychological character than plot. There is much talking done here, but — despite some racy flashbacks — precious little action.

What else would you expect from a story whose theme of thwarted desire is succinctly summed up by the line: “What we want doesn’t matter. What matters is what we get.”

That epigrammatic zinger is delivered by the character of Tina (Richardson), who opens the door to her palatial home in Venice one day to find a gentleman caller, played by Rhys Meyers in an impersonation of a human being (but actually something closer to an unscrupulous robot with good manners). Introducing himself as a writer named Edward Sullivan — a pseudonym, we later learn — he rents out rooms in the home that Tina shares with her elderly aunt Juliana (Redgrave), who was once the lover of the late, great poet Jeffrey Aspern. (That title character, seen only in flashback, is based on Percy Bysshe Shelley. In fact, the film opens with a prologue replicating, almost exactly, Louis Édouard Fournier’s painting “The Funeral of Shelley.” The character of Juliana is said to be based on Claire Clairmont, the stepsister of Shelley’s wife, the writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. )

Before long, it becomes clear that Edward — or, rather, Morton, as everyone else calls him — has a coldly calculating ulterior motive: A literary biographer and critic, Morton wants to get his hands on letters written by Aspern to Juliana some 60 years ago, letters that might reveal some prurient secret about their author, if the film’s many flashbacks to writhing threesomes are to be believed.

Morton’s deception, which also involves leading Tina on romantically in that hope that she might persuade her aunt to let him read the old letters, seems somewhat odd, given the ultimate silliness of the “mystery” surrounding them and the slightness of whatever literary insights they contain.

But the point of James’s story, and of the film, was never to lay bare an old scandal. Rather, it is to drive home a message that might seem obvious to anyone who has lived long enough to know that happy endings are for Hollywood: Life is not fair, and the kind of passion that endures is best looked for — and found — in poetry.

R.  At Landmark’s West End Cinema. Contains some sexuality and nudity. 130 minutes.

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The melodrama gets a bit too heavy in ‘The Aspern Papers’

“The Aspern Papers” is gorgeous to look at, but this literary melodrama needed more of a lightness of touch. Rating: 2 stars out of 4.

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Movie review.

For those of us with a weak spot for literary melodrama — particularly if period costumes involving lush velvet smoking jackets are involved — Julian Landais’ film debut, “The Aspern Papers,” might seem like just the thing. Based on the Henry James novella, itself inspired by the fate of love letters written by the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley to Claire Clairmont, it’s basically a three-hander set in 1880s Venice. An American editor named Morton Vint (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), obsessed with obtaining the letters written by the late poet Jeffrey Aspern, travels to Venice to meet Aspern’s now-elderly former lover Juliana (Vanessa Redgrave) and Juliana’s still-waters-run-deep niece Tina (Joely Richardson), who is what’s known as The Go-Between.

This all sounds like delicious Merchant-Ivory-ish fun (James Ivory himself is an executive producer) and “The Aspern Papers” is indeed gorgeous to look at, with elegantly fading Venetian palazzos and sparkling canals and the sort of cinematography (by Philippe Guilbert) that makes every scene look like a lit-from-within oil painting. And it’s a treat to see Redgrave and Richardson, a real-life mother and daughter, finding a poignant connection with their characters. Redgrave, three and a half decades ago, won an Olivier Award for playing Tina in a stage version of “The Aspern Papers” on London’s West End; this film represents a touching passing of the baton.

But Rhys Meyers, though he looks smashing wrapped up in all that velvet and cigarette smoke, can’t seem to find a note for Morton other than “woodenly peevish.” Perhaps he was troubled by the American accent (Rhys Meyers, so good as a social-climbing cad in “Match Point,” is Irish), but he delivers his lines flatly, as if stomping on delicate grass in heavy boots. “The Aspern Papers,” brief as it is, needed more of a lightness of touch; if you weigh down melodrama too much, it dies.

★★ “ The Aspern Papers ,” with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson. Directed by Julian Landais, from a screenplay by Landais, Jean Pavans and Hannah Bhuiya, based on the novella by Henry James. 90 minutes. Rated R for some sexuality/nudity. Grand Illusion, through Thursday, Jan. 17.

THE ASPERN PAPERS: Devoid Of Suspense Or Intrigue

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The Aspern Papers is a mystery period drama based upon the classic story published in the 1800s from the influential literary figure, Henry James. The original story has long been considered one of James’ most acclaimed tales for its ability to generate mounting suspense while also creating complicated, well-developed characters.

With a tale this celebrated and a cast including legendary actress Vanessa Redgrave , The Aspern Papers would appear to be a safe bet; however, none of the same praises can be applied to this dull adaptation from Julien Landais .

A Biographer’s Obsession With The Truth

Just as with the classic story it is based upon, the tale takes place in late 19th century Venice and follows ambitious critic and biographer, Morton Vint ( Jonathan Rhys Meyers ). Vint is shown to have no interest in marriage or settling down but is solely devoted to his obsession with the work of the late poet Jeffrey Aspern ( Jon Kortajarena ). Desperate to learn the contents of the letters his idol wrote to his former lover Julianna Bordereau ( Vanessa Redgrave ), Vint arranges to stay at the now much older Bordereau’s estate under the guise of a simple lodger.

The only other resident of the lavish yet battered home is Miss Tina (played by Redgrave’s real life daughter Joely Richardson ), Bordereau’s sheltered, spinster niece. Vint quickly attempts to win the favor of Miss Tina in the hope that she will aid him in his feverish quest to learn what secrets the infamous letters might reveal. What ensues is a dramatic triangle as Miss Tina is torn between wanting to honor her overbearing aunt’s wishes to keep the past hidden and appeasing her potential suitor’s thirst for knowledge.

A Mystery Lacking Intrigue

What should by all accounts be a thrillingly mysterious drama is relegated to a dull affair, as one never gets the impression that the contents of the letters are all that dangerous to any of the characters involved. Had it not been for the ominous music blaring throughout to imply the danger lurking beneath, I wouldn’t have even been aware that the story was attempting to be suspenseful. Additionally, the film never properly establishes why the young writer protagonist is so driven to procure these documents in the first place, making the viewer indifferent to his quest.

Matters are made worse as Jonathon Rhys Meyers provides a strange and completely unlikeable portrayal of a protagonist with whom we are meant to empathize with. Morton comes off almost predatory as his attempts at seduction are solely comprised of wide-eyed intense stares and the recitation of overly poetic lines with a questionable American accent that are worlds away from charming. The odd delivery is so cringeworthy that it is hard to believe even someone as sheltered as Miss Tina would be interested and wouldn’t turn tail and run the other way.

What’s more, the conspicuous nature of his manipulations coupled with the character’s smugness is almost comical and makes for an extremely predictable turn of events, as there is no doubt in the viewer’s mind that his iron vice of control will shift by the film’s end.

Venice Has Never Felt So Small

The lack of intrigue from The Aspern Papers also isn’t helped by the undeniably microscopic scope of the story, as the film features just a handful of settings and only bothers to develop three of its characters. This normally wouldn’t be a deal breaker, as there have been many dramas that benefit from a level of intimacy generated from the limited number of players and locations. However, when the main character is completely repugnant, it is hard to focus on anything else in the story.

Despite being abysmal as a suspense-riddled mystery, The Aspern Papers offers some fine performances from the always reliable Vanessa Redgrave as well as from Joely Richardson . I appreciate how ably Redgrave  towed the line between her actions being perceived as shrewd and senile, as it led to a level of unpredictability that made Julianna exciting to watch. Likewise, Richardson  turns in good work, as her performance elevated the writing at times. I felt a tremendous amount of sympathy for Miss Tina throughout as the spinster who is realizing how much of her life she has allowed herself to miss out on.

Admittedly there are instances where her performance comes off as melodramatic, such as some overemphasized deep sobbing in a memorable exchange; however, I believe this was more a product of poor editing that lingered too long on certain reactions.

The Aspern Papers : Conclusion

Ultimately as the mystery progresses and the contents of the sought-after documents grow less important, The Aspern Papers reveals itself to be a story about the dangerous sense of entitlement that can be born from the obsession of admirers. It is a powerful sentiment about historical figures and their right to privacy that is never driven home in this poorly executed adaptation.

Much like the eponymous letters, this period drama is not worth divulging the contents of and would be better off remaining a secret.

What did you think? Was it a good adaptation of the classic story? Let us know in the comments below!

The Aspern Papers was released in the U.S. on January 11, 2019.

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Rob Caiati is a writer and film critic with a passion for movies and TV of all genres. With an MA in Social and Consumer Psychology he is always fascinated by which stories are strongly resonating with society and why. You can find his other reviews and articles at Cinematic Insights (https://cinematicinsights.com).

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‘The Aspern Papers’ review: Henry James dreadfully dramatized

A henry james classic about a biographer on the hunt for a dead poet’s private letters gets a dreadful dramatization that foregoes the drama..

• Critic's rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Heaven knows what the winning pitch was to adapt an 1888 Henry James novella of subdued academic literary intrigue into a feature-length motion picture, or who the intended audience was meant to be. First-time filmmaker Julien Landais certainly brought little cinematic verve to “The Aspern Papers,” telling the story largely in turgid literary voiceover lifted directly from the original source material.

Heavy narrative voiceover rarely benefits a film, but here it’s especially deadly, as James’ deft prose is neutered by Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ delivery; the actor’s naturally mellifluous Irish accent is masked by an unconvincing and discordant American one that never sticks the landing.

He plays the ludicrously named Morton Vint (one of the film’s unfortunate creations, for in the novella he’s never named), a biographer and man of letters on the hunt for the never-seen personal letters of the dead and celebrated poet Jeffrey Aspern. The desired artifacts are in the possession of Aspern’s long-ago lover Juliana Bordereau (Vanessa Redgrave), now an old woman sequestered in a crumbling, overgrown estate in Venice with her spinster niece, Tina (Joely Richardson).

Juliana has been historically tight-lipped and tight-fisted about the letters and isn’t likely to give in to a swaggering scoundrel like Morton. So, he hatches a plot, introducing himself under an alias and becoming a lodger at the estate under the pretense of wanting to restore its garden to glory. Soon he’s filled the gloomy old house with flowers and ingratiated himself with quivering Tina, so starved for affection and adventure that she’s easily manipulated to Morton’s purpose.  

James is a master of quiet suspense, but on screen this makes for the dullest subterfuge, sticky with tortured musings about the whereabouts of ultimately inconsequential love letters. The film, perhaps knowing this, is peppered with tumescent and gaudy flashbacks of Aspern and Juliana as young and enthusiastic lovers, ruffled poets lush with wine and lust, hinting at the contents of Aspern’s letters. These R-rated flashbacks are shot with the all the elegance and heat of an underwear commercial, and they treat hot poet threesomes like the most scandalous imaginable thing in the world (instead of, you know, research).

It’s one in a winding list of ludicrous flourishes that spares little, including the wardrobe. One of Morton’s friends graces a gondola inexplicably dressed in jewel-encrusted gloves, a top hat and circular sunglasses, looking like a bedazzled Gary Oldman from “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

The film’s only spots of light are Redgrave and Richardson, who together wring vibrant drama from the coldest of stones – Richardson in particular, whose body language alone communicates her character’s inner life and creates a sympathetic portrait of a woman beset with secret longing. It’s unfortunate she shares so many of her scenes with Meyers, whose stage directions seem to have been limited to angsty smoking, glowering and striking a pose with his collar unbuttoned just so.

Which is why the good stuff, scarce as it is, is to no avail. All it does is underline how grievously every other part of the production fails.

Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Twitter.com/BabsVan.

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‘The Aspern Papers,’ 1.5 stars

Director: Julien Landais.

Cast: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely Richardson.

Rating: R for some sexuality/nudity.

Note: At Harkins Shea. 

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Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Entertainment | Review: ‘Aspern Papers’ is smart, literary and…

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Entertainment | review: ‘aspern papers’ is smart, literary and engaging, it practically reeks of dusty, yellowed pages and engraved-leather bookbinding..

By Michael O’Sullivan | Washington Post

It’s useful to know a few things about “The Aspern Papers” going in:

For instance, the movie is based on an 1888 novella by Henry James, about a man obsessed with obtaining a secret cache of love letters from a poet who died tragically young. It stars the great Vanessa Redgrave as the woman who zealously guards those letters; Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the man who zealously seeks them; and Redgraves’s daughter Joely Richardson as the poor soul caught between them.

It was co-produced by James Ivory, whose résumé includes directing credits on such sterling literary adaptations as “A Room with a View” and a producing credit for “Call Me By Your Name.” And it has been adapted many, many times before – for film, television, opera, radio and the stage. (This version, as it happens, was co-written by Jean Pavans, based on his 2002 French play, “Les Papiers d’Aspern,” along with Hannah Bhuiya and director Julien Landais.)

What all that tells you is that the film is smart, literary, nuanced, slightly stagy – and pedigreed to within an inch of its life. It practically reeks of dusty, yellowed pages and engraved-leather bookbinding.

What this almost certainly does not guarantee is a rollicking good time, even by the constrained standards of such deeply internalized material, which, like many films of its ilk, is more about psychological character than plot. There is much talking done here, but – despite some racy flashbacks – precious little action.

What else would you expect from a story whose theme of thwarted desire is succinctly summed up by the line: “What we want doesn’t matter. What matters is what we get.”

That epigrammatic zinger is delivered by the character of Tina (Richardson), who opens the door to her palatial home in Venice one day to find a gentleman caller, played by Rhys Meyers in an impersonation of a human being (but actually something closer to an unscrupulous robot with good manners). Introducing himself as a writer named Edward Sullivan – a pseudonym, we later learn – he rents out rooms in the home that Tina shares with her elderly aunt Juliana (Redgrave), who was once the lover of the late, great poet Jeffrey Aspern. (That title character, seen only in flashback, is based on Percy Bysshe Shelley.)

In fact, the film opens with a prologue replicating, almost exactly, Louis Édouard Fournier’s painting “The Funeral of Shelley.” The character of Juliana is said to be based on Claire Clairmont, the stepsister of Shelley’s wife, the writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. )

Before long, it becomes clear that Edward – or, rather, Morton, as everyone else calls him – has a coldly calculating ulterior motive: A literary biographer and critic, Morton wants to get his hands on letters written by Aspern to Juliana some 60 years ago, letters that might reveal some prurient secret about their author, if the film’s many flashbacks to writhing threesomes are to be believed.

Morton’s deception, which also involves leading Tina on romantically in that hope that she might persuade her aunt to let him read the old letters, seems somewhat odd, given the ultimate silliness of the “mystery” surrounding them and the slightness of whatever literary insights they contain.

But the point of James’ story, and of the film, was never to lay bare an old scandal. Rather, it is to drive home a message that might seem obvious to anyone who has lived long enough to know that happy endings are for Hollywood: Life is not fair, and the kind of passion that endures is best looked for – and found – in poetry.

‘The Aspern Papers’

Rating: R (Contains some sexuality and nudity)

Running time: 130 minutes

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The Aspern Papers (2019)

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A young writer tries to obtain romance letters a poet sent to his mistress.

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Movie Review: ‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ clears a low bar

This image released by Columbia Pictures shows, from left, Celeste O’Connor, Kumail Nanjiani, Finn Wolfhard and James Acaster in a scene from “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” (Jaap Buitendijk/Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

This image released by Columbia Pictures shows, from left, Mckenna Grace, Logan Kim, Dan Aykroyd and Patton Oswalt in a scene from “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” (Jaap Buitendijk/Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

This image released by Columbia Pictures shows Mckenna Grace in a scene from “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” (Jaap Buitendijk/Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

This image released by Columbia Pictures shows Dan Aykroyd, left, and Kumail Nanjiani in a scene from “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” (Jaap Buitendijk/Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

This image released by Columbia Pictures shows, from left, Celeste O’Connor, Finn Wolfhard, James Acaster, Logan Kim and Dan Aykroyd in a scene from “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” (Jaap Buitendijk/Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

This image released by Columbia Pictures shows a scene from “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” (Columbia Pictures/Sony via AP)

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Forty years after “Ghostbusters” and following a string of sequels that never measured up to the 1984 original — beginning all the way back with 1989’s “Ghostbusters II” — it’s fair to wonder, well, who else ought we to call? It may be time to, if not give up the ghost entirely, at least give a flip through the ol’ rolodex.

But as the lackluster 2021 installment, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” showed, the half life of most film franchises today is an ever-lengthening long tail of diminishing returns. Though the options are many, sucking “Ghostbusters” dry would make a prime exhibit in Hollywood’s nostalgia fix.

Still, it’s not quite as simple as that. I’m glad for the female-led 2016 “Ghostbusters.” Aside from prompting a minor culture war, it assembled the best comic ensemble since the original with Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and, yes, Chris Hemsworth.

And as easy as it might be to label the new one, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” another half-hashed retread — which it is, a little bit — it’s also a significant upgrade from “Afterlife,” which relocated the action to Oklahoma and forgot to pack any comedy. “Frozen Empire,” back, thankfully, in New York, is a breezier, more serviceable sequel that has a modest charm as an ’80-tinged family adventure.

The innate appeal of “Ghostbusters” had to do with its brash mixing of genres — adult-edged comedy with sci-fi toys — that summoned the spirit of “Abbott of Costello Meet Frankenstein.” When the sequels have gone astray, it’s usually because they get bogged down with solemnity or special effects when all they really need is the it’s-the-end-of-the-world-and-I-feel-fine smirk of Bill Murray. I’d forgive bad visual effects a lot sooner than I would bland comic interplay.

“Frozen Empire,” though, is organized less around a group of funny people wearing proton packs than it is around a family. The movie more or less opens with the Ectomobile racing down Fifth Avenue with Gary (Paul Rudd) at the wheel, Callie (Carrie Coon) riding shotgun and her kids — Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) — in the back, all in bickering pursuit of a “sewer dragon” apparition.

The cast is much the same as “Afterlife,” but the behind-the-scenes talent has been rejiggered. After Jason Reitman took over directing from his father, Ivan Reitman, he here is credited as a producer and writer. Gil Kenan, who co-wrote “Afterlife,” directs “Frozen Empire,” which is dedicated to the elder Reitman, who died in 2022.

More than before, you can feel the growing distance from the original “Ghostbusters.” Harold Ramis died in 2014 and while Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson all return, they no longer feel like the axis to this cinematic universe. (Aykroyd, though, gives the movie some soulful quirk as Dr. Raymond Stantz, and Ernie Hudson may be more a potent presence than ever.)

Familiar-faced ghosts return, too, in “Frozen Empire,” which, like its predecessor, doesn’t skimp on the fan service. That instinct to cater to “Ghostbusters” diehards (a kind of ridiculous kind of diehard, if we’re being honest) continues to diminish a franchise that recoiled defensively after the 2016 “Ghostbusters.”

But if you accept the low-bar aspirations of “Frozen Empire,” you may get a pleasant-enough experience out of it. It’s a movie that feels almost more like a high production-value TV pilot for an appealing sitcom, with Rudd as the stepfather, than it does a big-screen event on par with the original.

The family has moved into the famed fire station, but trouble abounds. The contamination unit is stuffed, the mayor (Walter Peck, who played the nemesis EPA inspector in the 1984 film) wants to evict and there are disturbing rumblings connected with an object that turns up — the Orb of Garraka — that may awaken a particularly fearsome spirit.

People get slimed. Ghosts get busted. New Yorkers shrug. The formula is adhered to, albeit with a few lively twists. The standout here is Grace, who’s drawn into a brief but tender relationship with a ghost (played alluringly by Emily Alyn Lind) after a nighttime chess match in Washington Square Park. And Kumail Nanjiani more or less steals the movie playing a Queens man and reluctant heir to the mystic role of “Firemaster.” He’s funny enough that you’re almost convinced, in an overextended movie franchise, not to give up the ghost just yet.

“Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” a Sony Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for supernatural action/violence, language and suggestive references. Running time: 115 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.