Miss Julie

Liv Ullman gets just about everything wrong in her slow, heavy, inert adaptation of "Miss Julie." The play needs white hot intensity; she kills its momentum with portentous silences. It needs the claustrophobia of its kitchen setting; she dissipates this by "opening it up" as you're supposedly required to do when filming plays, taking it down corridors and outdoors. It needs an atmosphere of raucous midsummer revelry right outside the windows, with the revelers at one point invading the kitchen; she lets us hear them, briefly, but otherwise the three characters seem to be the last people on earth. Instead of merry folk dancing, which provides an ironic counterpoint in the original, we get a string trio playing tasteful Schubert adagios. Jessica Chastain is well cast and, when allowed to come to life, very good, as is Samantha Morton, but Colin Farrell is misdirected; his Jean ("John" in this version) lacks the charm and sardonic humor that would make the character compelling. For no good reason the play is relocated to Ireland, a setting Ullmann makes no use of. (I guess it's to justify the actors' brogues.) Strindberg sets a clock going right from the start, so that the proceedings carry tremendous urgency; Ullman drains all the tension out of it so it plods drearily. The worst thing you can do in adapting any work is drape it in the deadening mantle of a "classic." There's nice decor, costumes and cinematography to gaze at, but don't let this be your introduction to Strindberg's electrifying play.

Adapted from a play, the film does have a very theater-like mood, portraying just three characters, besides a dog (well, and a yellow bird) and an unseen mob (and an unseen and unheard baron), with dialogues that not always fit naturally. The first 40 minutes portray an intriguing cruel game between the daughter of the owner of the estate and a servant, a game where passion, class, deeds, appearances, everything are interwined. However, although the film kept that very uncomfortable atmosphere, the duel became quite inconsistent, and consequently less engaging. Except for the nice lines of his fiancée, at 1h30, characters behave in too contradictory ways, which make no sense in my opinion even considering increasingly appearant madness of Miss Julie. Despite all those problems, I cannot help but mention that Jessica Chastain has a powerful performance in very different moments, in a broad range varying from femme fatale to lunatic.

Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell are superb. Although the critics seem to hate this movie, lauding it to be nothing like they imagined the play to be, nonetheless, having not ever seen the play or read it, I had nothing to base my preconceived ideas on. Therefore, this was something of a masterpiece. Incredible performances from the actors, painful, and actually a treatise to the hideous mores and codes of its times, despite being adapted by Liv Ullman, the over-riding theme is astonishing when you discover that the original play was written in 1888, and depicts the absurdities of human belief systems and caste systems. In this day and age, they would have had a rollick one night, said goodbye and avoided each other's eyes in the hallway whilst getting the heck on with their lives! A story of a very lonely, overly sensitive young woman who has no idea what life is about, and the sanctimonious serving maid who thinks that Jesus will save her, and how ultimately, a poor boy has a turmoil of stored hatred and vindictiveness toward the gentry, albeit rightly so, yet turns that into a crime that is inconceivable. An utterly brilliant work. Kudos to Liv Ullman. If you want action, no dialogue, and joy, this movie might not be for you. But if you want to take a good, long look at how evil the natural function of humanity is made by an unnatural society, this is a winner.

Jessica's Chastain in particular is brilliant. But really I'm writing this review to say this movie made me hate men forever.

I'd have to agree with a few others- the acting is brilliant (I'd expect nothing else from this bunch) and the idea is there, but the pacing was painfully slow (no, I do NOT prefer action movies over dramas and yes, I LOVE period pieces). Even though it's over two hours long, I didn't feel connected to any character, which I believe is because of how it was filmed, not the actors, because again, they were committed and believable. All in all, not a total waste of time, but I won't be watching it again and will likely forget about it fairly soon.